Imperfect Love
by raerae-05
Summary: Edward Cullen is the new guy at Forks High and meets Bella Swan, who has a secret that's been haunting her for a while. Can she learn to trust him and finally tell the truth. Will he be able to love her when she finally does?
1. Chapter 1

**Hey everyone, this is the first chapter of my first fanfic ever. All comments are greatly appreciated! **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight :(**

**Imperfect Love: Chapter 1**

Bella's POV:

I hadn't really breathed in so long. I always felt like I was gasping for air; like there was something caught in my throat and no matter how many times I coughed or swallowed, it just grew with each passing day of my silence. It seems for me that the old standard line to live by was proven true once again: You don't realize what you have, until it's gone. And I had had a lot. And I had lost more than I thought possible. The hole in my soul was openly bleeding every day. And I had no idea how to make it stop.

I glanced over my shoulder, through the crowded room, until my eyes came to rest on a table I knew quite well. I couldn't decide which emotion was more dominant inside of me: relief or jealousy that I was no longer welcomed there. Alice looked up at me then and I turned back to my empty table and my book quickly so she wouldn't see either emotion on my face. Alice, my former best friend, hadn't spoken to me since that fateful night last June. I couldn't really blame her. In the proverbial dog-eat-dog world of high school, she was just protecting her pedestal, terrified to fall from grace, like I had. It shames me to say that I probably would have turned my back on her as well, if she had committed social suicide. Of course, if she knew what I was feeling, I like to think she would have spared me the pain that was ripping my insides apart every second. I would have done it for her. In fact I probably still would.

The bell rang then and I slowly packed up my things and headed to Biology. I couldn't be the first person to enter the classroom and take my seat, but I couldn't be the last person through the door either. It was a delicate balance, walking into class with enough people so that no one took direct notice of you, but making sure that you weren't butting into a clique because then they would sneer at you for trying to force yourself into their posse. I had become pretty good at being invisible since school started again; people generally took little notice of me now. All that was left of my glorified high school days was locker room gossip and whispers when I walked through the halls. At least they didn't know everything.

I took my seat at the back of class and hunched as low as I could in the high stool. My lab table was the only one in the class that only one person sat at. I didn't need a lab partner, the work wasn't difficult to me, and Mr. Scott had been kind enough not to force me to team up with someone. Even the faculty knew what happened over the summer. That's what happens when you live in Forks, Washington, with its pathetic population of less than 3,000 people. Everyone knows everyone else's business; at least the teachers seemed to sympathize with me. Teenagers were not so forgiving.

My mom, god bless her soul, thought I was just going through normal teenager shit and didn't interfere. I had always been independent and she loved the fact that she didn't have to be a parental figure. She preferred to think of us as BFF's. I wasn't about to burst her bubble. She was always excessively happy and energetic and I relished in the fact that at least one person didn't mind being around me during my doom and gloom saga. Even if it was the person biologically programmed to love me. She still asked me how school was every night, though my response was always an indifferent, "Fine." She seemed to accept the fact that there were things she didn't know about my life and she didn't pry. She knew me so well and I knew that she would let me work through my issues on my own, like I always had. Of course, nothing as traumatic had ever happened to me before.

By October, school had become mind-numbingly dull. I did the same damn thing every day; walked with my head down, avoided meeting anyone's gaze or touching anyone, ate by myself, spoke to no one, raced to my car after the final bell and finally exhaled my breath when I reached the sanctity of my room. My comfort bubble burst on a Wednesday afternoon when I walked through the cafeteria doors and saw someone sitting at my always deserted table. I froze. My breath hitched as panic coursed through my veins and my brain tried to figure out my next move. If I stood still too long in the cafeteria where everyone could see me, eventually people would notice and my invisibility cloak would slip off. I glanced around myself and my nightmare was happening right before my eyes. People were elbowing each other and pointing at me and the whispers got progressively louder, as did my heartbeat. I gathered myself as best I could and practically ran to my table. _It'd probably be worse if I fled from the cafeteria. _

I stood next to the table thief and waited for him to look up at me. Wrong choice. He met my angry gaze and my resolve to reclaim my table completely melted away. He had the most dazzling green and gold eyes I had ever seen. They seeped with indifference, but they still sparkled as I dazed into them. I felt myself getting lost but I couldn't look away. The rest of his face was just as beautiful as his eyes. His features were strong, but not harsh-looking. He had high cheek bones and a set of full lips that looked extremely kissable. His hair was a dirty blondish color and a total mess that looked like it'd never been brushed, but it looked good on him. Anything would probably look good on him. The stubble that graced his jawbone added that sexy-I-don't-give-a-shit look that I'd always fucking gone for. He must be new to Forks High because I'd certainly remember that level of sex-appeal if I'd seen it before. I was vaguely aware that I was gaping at him, but didn't stop until his voice reached my ears. I blinked and shook my head, trying to make sense of what he had said.

"I'm sorry, I was um.... wait....what?" I hadn't spoken to anyone at school in so long I was surprised I even managed to get out that incoherent thought.

"I said can I help you?" Damn, he had a sexy voice too. Like velvet, even though it sounded annoyed.

"Oh, um....yeah, actually you're sitting at my table." I accused him, not as harsh as I had wanted to be.

"I wasn't aware that they were assigned." He replied, not missing a beat.

"Well they're not, but.....I always sit here, everyday." I explained, assuming that would clear up the whole problem.

"Except for today." He said, zero remorse in his voice.

I exhaled furiously and folded my arms in a defiant pose. "Look why can't you just sit somewhere else and give me back my damn table?"

"Because it's not your table and you're already standing so why don't you just sit somewhere else?" I was pretty fucking shocked at how harsh his tone was.

I stared at him in disbelief, waiting for a brilliant response to occur to me. When nothing came out of my half-open mouth, he turned back to his food. I mumbled "jackass" and then quickly stalked away before he could look up at me again. I ate lunch in the bathroom that day. _How pathetic am I? ____There was absolutely no good reason why I couldn't simply sit down at another table in the cafeteria. My routine for today had already been screwed up, so why couldn't I? And why the hell am I about to cry over this whole stupid thing?_I was one of the first people in Biology and I put my head down on my arms, happy to be out of the bathroom but still pissed off about losing my lunch table and a little angry about how upset the whole situation made me. _Well, the day can only get better from here._

Edward's POV:  
_Fuck my life. _Whiny Weird Lunch Girl was sitting at the only lab table with an empty seat. She had her head down but I recognized that her from her long wavy hair that was falling down over her head. The teacher predictably pointed me to sit next to her and I slouched my way to the back of the classroom. She looked up when I pulled out my stool and disgust mixed with horror flooded her eyes.

"You've got to be kidding me" she mumbled under her breath._ I'm not exactly thrilled about this either, fucking whiny bitch. _

The teacher began handing out the assignment for that day and of course, because I am the unluckiest bastard in the world, we had to work with our lab partners. I looked over at her and shrugged. We didn't have any choice. She grimaced, moving her stool closer to mine and leaned over to read the instructions with me. We worked in silence and quickly. At least she knew what the fuck she was doing and I had already done this lab in L.A. so we were the first ones done in class. The teacher checked our work, nodding approvingly, and told us to take the rest of the class to get to know each other. _Fucking prick._ Couldn't he at least give us some busy work so we didn't have sit here so awkwardly?

The silence was fucking excruciating. She was glaring at the front of the room with her arms folded and completely ignoring me. Apologizing would probably have been the right thing to do, so I said this instead.

"Shit, what is your problem? Are you seriously that pissed off about losing your fucking lunch table?" She turned to look at me with a crushed expression on her face. _Fuck me. _I really didn't want to hurt her feelings. I just couldn't figure out what the big fucking deal was.

She swallowed thickly and turned her gaze away from me before answering. "It doesn't matter, you wouldn't understand."

She was probably right. I never really did understand what the hell went on in a girl's mind. They were so god-damn complicated.

"Look, I'm sorry. It's just a fucking table, can't you get over it?" I asked, keeping my voice low so that only she could hear.

"I'm over it. Just drop it, asshole." She shot back at me.

"Well, good, I'm glad you're over it." Sarcasm was always my favorite go-to insult trick. She rolled her eyes and pivoted her body away from me with an angry jerk.

The seconds ticked by. We sat through the last ten minutes of class, her with her back to me and her arms folded across her chest. Every once in a while she'd let out an angry huffing noise and shake her head a bit. I fought the urge to laugh at her completely irrational reaction to the whole fucking lunch table incident. When the bell finally rang, she was out of her seat and out the door before anyone else. _Nice to meet you, too, whiny, weird, over-reacting bitch._

"How was your first day, dude?" I looked up at my dad with a smirk on my face.

"Just bitchin' man." I choked out with a laugh. My dad chuckled.

"Come on, seriously. Do you hate it here as much as you thought you would?" He inquired, shifting into his concerned doctor voice. I wasn't in the mood to be diagnosed.

"No dad, it's fine really." I ducked my eyes from his probing gaze and searched through the containers of Chinese food littering the coffee table. I was glad he didn't seem to mind eating in the living room. It was easier to be with Carlisle when the TV could provide some white noise and an excuse for not making eye contact with him. We ate in what I had assumed to be a comfortable silence, for a few minutes then my dad cleared his throat and decided to try and ruin the rest of my night.

"I know how hard it was to leave that house, but we did the right thing." He couldn't hide the sadness that was breaking his voice.

I stood up abruptly form the table, not willing to have that conversation tonight. "I know. I have homework to do." I turned away before I could see the sadness that was sure to be on his face from my brush-off of him. I raced up the stairs and locked my door, grabbed my cigarettes and a lighter and sat down on the balcony, leaning against the wall of the house. Thank fucking god I got the room with the balcony. I had no doubt that my dad knew that I smoked like a chimney, but at least out here I didn't have to feel guilty about his disapproving gaze. I think he also knew that I needed to smoke. It was the only thing that seemed to calm me down and he was fucking thrilled that I didn't have to be on those little blue pills anymore. My hand was shaking as I desperately grappled with the silver lighter to get the cigarette lit. I inhaled deeply and eventually the calming effects took over and my fucking hand stopped shaking. I stared up at the stars and the mountains. I had to admit, it was fucking beautiful here, except for all the god-damn rain. And he was right, it did feel good to leave everything behind, including that damn house, and I couldn't understand why the fuck he kept trying to talk about it. _Shit head. _

___I climbed into a hot shower to try and soothe myself after I'd finished off my pack of cigarettes. It was incredibly fucking embarrassing how one comment from my father could have such an effect on me. Maybe I did need those happy pills after all. The more I thought about it, the more unstable I began to feel. And the more unstable I felt, the more ashamed at myself I became. I was a man, god-damn-it. I should be able to handle this shit. I got out of the shower when the water turned from calm-me-the-fuck-down hot to freeze-my-ass-off cold. I dried off quickly and threw on some boxer shorts before climbing into bed. I closed my eyes, bracing myself for another restless night full of nightmares. _

I didn't sit at her lunch table on Thursday. I'm not a complete asshole. Also, I was recruited to sit with Perky Conceited Flirty Chick from my first hour class. Despite being a tiny little thing, Alice had an energy about her that somewhat exhausted me. She was always upbeat and happy, jittery and bouncy. She reminded me of that fucking energizer bunny.

"This is Jasper, Rosalie and Emmet. Guys, this is Edward." Alice went around the table, introducing each of her friends. They were all staring up at me with curious eyes.

"Hey, how's it going?" I asked the table at large, hating every second of being the new exciting thing in their day.

Jasper pulled up an empty chair and I sat down next to him. "Good to meet you man. I get so bored with these fuckers it's nice to have someone new in the group." _Shit, I was already part of this clique. _I sat down next to him while Alice took her seat on his other side. I got the sudden sinking feeling that I was a fifth wheel to this group as Jasper and Emmet both threw their arms over the girl sitting next to him, marking their territory. I laughed inwardly; Jasper had nothing to worry about, even though when she stopped talking long enough, Alice was pretty. Emmet on the other hand, I don't blame him one bit for laying claim to Rosalie. She was one of the most strikingly beautiful girls I'd ever seen. She was definitely the hottest blonde I'd ever seen, including all the California sluts I knew. She had big brown eyes, long silky blonde hair, and a body that curved in all the right places.

"So, you're from L.A. right?" Rosalie asked, leaning over the table to stare at me, giving me a pleasing view of her glorious cleavage.

"Yeah, what'd you do read my transcript?" The small town notion of everyone knowing everyone else's fucking business was obviously not lost in Forks.

"Oh, don't be silly. Everyone's been waiting for you to arrive for months." Alice chirpped. "You're the most exciting thing to happen around here in a while."

"Shit, that's pathetic. Sorry, but I'm a pretty boring bastard." I groaned, hoping that they really believed me.

"Great you'll fit in perfectly here." Emmett said in his booming voice.

Someone up there likes me because I did fit in with them. Awkward fucking high school fitting in problem averted. Jasper was laid-back and Emmet was funny as shit. Even the girls had their moments; Rosalie was conceited as fuck, but her snarky comments about Emmet were priceless. Alice relaxed immensely around Jasper and she wasn't nearly as annoying as before. She was still overly girly and bubbly, but it was cuter when there were other people around to soak it up. I was honestly enjoying myself when I caught her eye from across the room. Whiny Weird Over-reacting Lunch Bitch was staring at me from her precious fucking table with wide eyes and she looked...annoyed. And that really pissed me off. I hadn't sat at her god-damn table and yet there she was, looking fucking bitter as all hell.

Still holding her gaze, I said to no one in particular, "That girl's a fucking freak." Jasper looked around at who I was staring at and grunted.

"Check it out baby." He whispered to Alice and her face fell when she saw who we were looking at. It was the first time I'd seen her not smile. She looked sad.

"Who is she?" I was really hoping they could tell me what her god-damn problem was.

"That's Bella Swan." Jasper said with a shake of his head. "How do you know her?"

"I sat at her table during lunch yesterday and she freaked the fuck out. Then I had to sit next to her in Biology and she wouldn't let it go. And now, she's looking at me like I killed her damn dog or something. I don't know what the fuck I did to her." I blurted out angrily.

"Well, that's probably because you did it again." Emmet said with a laugh that sounded forced. At my quizzical look, he elaborated. "Bella use to sit at this table last year."

"Oh…what happened?" There was a general groan around the table and I heard Jasper mumble: "Here we go again."

"It happened this summer," Alice began in a sorrowful tone. "James, Bella's boyfriend at the time, was having a party while his parents were away. It was pretty wild and there were a lot of people there, basically the whole school. Anyway, someone brought cocaine to the party...."

"We didn't even know the kid that brought that shit. We have our fun, but we're not fucking coke heads." Emmet interjected angrily.

"We asked the kid to leave but Bella got spooked and called the police. Everyone ran like hell, but it's hard to hide something like that from your parents in this town." Alice explained.

"Everyone knew Bella had called the fucking cops and people were pissed. We're usually pretty good at not getting caught." Emmet grumbled.

"Shit that sucks." I said, chancing another glance at Bella. She was staring down at her book now.

"At least she had the guts to turn the fucker in, it's what we should have done." Jasper said hotly.

"Maybe, but look where she ended up." Rosalie said before turning to me. "Anyway, the worst part is that she didn't even say sorry, she didn't talk to any of us after that night." I notice Alice shift uncomfortably in her chair.

"So, she used to be a good friend of your's?" I asked, looking around the table.

"Yeah, Bella was the Queen of Forks High before that night. Everybody adored her." Alice said with a small, sad smile. "She used to be my best friend." Jasper hung his head low and squeezed Alice gently around her waist.

"She was mine, too." Jasper said, his voice breaking a bit.

"Belles was so much fun, always had something funny to say." Emmet was no doubt trying to lighten the mood.

Rosalie laughed lightly. "She was the one that finally told you to get over your shit and ask me out, remember?" They were all laughing at the memory but it was short-lived. "I really miss her sometimes."

Alice looked at me then and there were tears in her eyes about to spill over. "Don't say anything to her about it, please. I don't want her to think that we all sit around and talk about her."

"I won't say a word." I promised. Alice just nodded at me. I felt horrible for bringing this up. They all looked so glum after reliving what had happened.

The bell rang then and everyone started getting up. I looked over at where Bella was sitting but the table was already empty. I felt pretty fucking bad for her. It can't be easy going to a high school where everyone fucking despises you. When I walked into the Biology classroom, I met her gaze and felt even worse for her. She looked fucking sad and anxious as hell. She dipped her head from my eyes and covered her face with her hand. In that moment, I made myself refuse to judge her. I didn't know her at all and I had been judged by absolute strangers too. It was so unfair and it had been done to me too many fucking times. _I won't be an asshole to this poor girl. _


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Bella's POV:

That New Hot Lunch Table Stealing Bastard had some freaking nerve. There he sat, all perfect male-model looking, sitting with my oldfriends at my old lunch table, in the same exact place next to Jas that had always been meant for me. And Jas and Em and Ali and Rose were all laughing and talking to him like he'd known them for years. They had finally replaced me. The anger rose up inside so quickly that it literally left me reeling. My breathing became impossibly harder as I stared at the new fucking Breakfast Club forming in front of my eyes. I had a flashback to last year, at that same god-damn table, sitting next to Jas and Rose, across from Ali and Em, laughing and smiling without a care in the world. They had been my family.

_Don't cry in the fucking cafeteria._

Then he looked at me and those damn green eyes of his had me captivated once again so I couldn't look away. I saw his expression turn icy and wondered what the hell my face looked like. I was most likely sneering at him, friend-stealing prick. He was saying something to Jas and to my horror Jasper turned and glanced at me quickly. I ducked my head right before Alice turned her attention to me as well. Time to flee.

I grabbed my bag off the floor and made my way hastily to the door, keeping my head down and staring at the floor like the coward I was. Once I was safely outside, I chanced one quick peep at their table through the window. They were all huddled together, talking intensely. _Shit_

I stared resolutely at the black lab table. If I looked up, I knew I'd read too much in his eyes. I had no idea if he had heard everything at lunch, but if he had, I wasn't eager to have his accusing gaze penetrate my eyes. My mind pulled against my better judgment and I found myself wondering why I even cared. This guy didn't know me at all, everyone else in this school already judged me and I dealt with it just fine. With a sinking feeling, I realized that he had been a small ray of hope. He was new and even though he was a total jerk, I could've talked to him without blushing furiously, without feeling self conscious, without being the crazy bitch who lost her mind and called the cops to a party with underage drinkers and ruined everyone's lives. __

I heard his stool scratch against the floor and his sigh when he sat down. I looked up to the front of the room and kept my eyes on Mr. Scott, not listening to what he was saying, waiting anxiously for the judging stare to fall on me. The minutes felt like hours as we silently worked on our lab assignment. He hadn't looked at me, and eventually my resolve broke down and I looked sideways at him briefly. He looked so bored and annoyed that I involuntarily let out a laugh. I shut up quickly but he had already heard and I saw a crooked smile pull at his lips. It was so unfair of him to be so good-looking when I was trying to ignore him. I turned back to my work, trying to regain my composure.

"Fuck, this stuff is boring as shit." He whispered to me with a frustrated look in his eyes.

"But at least it's easy, right?" My voice sounded strange to me and I wondered vaguely when I'd used it last at school. I inwardly groaned when I realized that it was yesterday when I was bitching to this same unbelievably gorgeous guy about my stupid lunch table. He simply nodded, still looking down at his desk. God, I had to be boring as hell to talk to. But the hope was back; he was talking to me, kind of, so maybe he didn't know everything. Maybe they had kept their fucking mouths shut. I exhaled and decided to mend things before he could think anything worse of me than he already did. "Hey, um, I'm really sorry....about that whole.....lunch table thing. It was really immature and.....well, I feel like I was a real bitch to you and.... it wasn't your fault so I'm.....I'm really sorry." I stuttered.

"Don't worry about it," he said while shrugging his shoulders. I let out a huge sigh of relief and he chuckled quietly while raising his gaze to mine. "Were you really that fucking nervous about it?" He asked, with a slight smile on his lips. His perfect kissable lips.

"About what?" I asked with no clue of what he could possibly find amusing right now.

"About apologizing. You didn't really have to, you know?" His voice was suddenly full of...sympathy? "It was my fault, after all. I wasn't very nice about the whole thing." There was a knowing look in his eyes that made my heart start to hammer in my chest. "I'm sorry it even happened." He was apologizing to me. He sounded guilty and he was looking at me with pitiful eyes. And my stomach hit the floor, because he knew everything, and he was choosing to pity me. I was use to harsh stares and judgmental mutterings, but this was completely new to me; and it fucking stung. He thought I was pathetic. He thought I was weak. He felt bad for me. I just stared back at him, willing the angry tears not to fall down my cheeks. He finally spoke again as I stared into his beautiful green, pitying eyes. "I just realized I don't even know your name." He asked with a tone of curiosity to his voice.

I turned away from him then and whispered back, "Yes, you do" while wiping a tear from my cheek. God-damn emotions; I could never control them the way I needed to. I was being so irrational. I shouldn't have cared at all, but for some reason when I looked into his eyes and saw all the pity he had for me, it broke my heart a little bit. Maybe I wouldn't have cared if he wasn't so attractive, but then that would make me irrational and shallow, so I swallowed down that thought.

Edward's POV:

_Shit. _I thought me apologizing to her was a bit much, and fuck it if I wasn't right. I was trying to make her feel better, but instead I had made her fucking cry. I pulled my eyes from her wet face and fought with my mind to get a grip on myself. Because, for some unknown, god-damn reason, my fucking arms were aching to pull Bella toward me, to hug her until she felt better, to cradle her in my arms and protect her from the world. I reasoned that it must just be instinct at seeing someone so fucking tiny fucking cry.

"Are you okay?" I asked, looking anywhere, but at her. Cause there was no reason to fucking hide the fact now. I had heard the whole damn story and she fucking knew it.

"Yea, I'm fine." She sniffled. "I'm sorry. I'm probably making you really uncomfortable, huh? I'm so sorry."

God, that was fucking annoying. "Has anyone ever told you that you apologize way too fucking much." I asked her. She looked at me then with flaming red, wet cheeks. She was fucking embarrassed. _God-damn broken brain filter._

"Um...it's really the only thing that feels natural to me, anymore." I furrowed my brow at her. "Saying sorry for everything." She clarified in a whisper. She sounded so fucking depressed and lonely.

"Can we start over?" I was suddenly desperate to make her feel better. I held out my hand to her. "I'm Edward Cullen. It's nice to meet you."

She snorted and rolled her eyes but placed her hand in mine, nonetheless. It was so soft and warm, two times smaller than mine. Her fingers were thin and long and I grasped them gently and shook her hand. "Bella Swan." She said before dropping her hand from mine. My fingers were fucking tingling from the touch of her skin. I slipped my hand in my pocket, holding on to the god-damn warmth. I smiled at her and she smiled back and it must have been the first time I ever really fucking looked at her because my breath caught in my throat. She was fucking beautiful: pale, smooth skin framed with wavy, dark brown hair; slight cheekbones and the most adorable nose I had ever seen; eyes that were the deepest shade of blue, with golden flecks that made them sparkle, framed with a thick set of black lashes; delicate pink lips, the bottom one a bit fuller than the top. Everything about her face was elegant, even her god-damn jaw bone. And when she smiled, with glossy white teeth, only one dimple appeared in her left cheek. _That's one of the cutest fucking things I've ever seen._ "So...." she said awkwardly, probably because I was gaping at her. "Do you miss LA.?"

It took me a few seconds to realize she had spoken. "Uh, I miss the fucking sun, but that's about it."

"I can't imagine what it would be like to see the sun every day. It must've been heaven." She said wistfully.

"Well, it was a hell of a lot warmer." She chuckled at my lame-ass joke and the laughter lit up her face. It made her even more stunning.

"How did you know where I was from?" I asked a bit surprised that she knew that piece of information.

"I may be avoided like a leper at school, but this is still a small town, and everyone, parents included, were waiting for the new doctor and his son to show up." She said with mock excitement in her voice.

"Do you like Forks?" I asked her.

"Not really. I don't like the rain or the cold and that's basically all we ever get here. I sometimes think about going to live in Phoenix." She blurted out in a rush, obviously nervous. I wondered how long it'd been since she talked to anyone at school. Or anyone at all.

"You'd move to Phoenix by yourself?" I wanted to keep her talking, hoping that she'd relax after a while.

"No...." She shook her head. "My dad lives there, so....besides, I wouldn't really mind being alone anyway."

"Yea, I noticed." I smiled wryly at her and she laughed lightly. "So, if your dad's there, why don't you just go?" She looked at me like I was fucking insane.

"I wouldn't leave my mother." She said defensively.

"But after what you went through...wouldn't she understand that you wanted to get away from here?" I wasn't asking her questions to keep her talking anymore. I was honestly interested in her answer.

"Of course she would, but she needs me." She was still being defensive of her mother and that made me jealous, but I had no fucking clue why.

"What do you mean?" I couldn't understand why she wouldn't take every opportunity to just get the fuck out of here.

She laughed and slightly shook her head. "My mom's not what you would call domestic. Most of the time I feel like her mom, always taking care of her. But I love her, so I can't leave." She spoke with such conviction that there was no doubting her. She loved her mother enough to stay in a place where people avoided her like the plague.

My fucking throat closed up and my chest seared in pain. I closed my eyes tightly so that the fucking tears wouldn't come, but covered my face with my hands just in case. _Get a grip, you pussy._

"Edward, is something wrong?" I could hear the concern in her voice. I exhaled deeply and looked up at her.

"No, that's really...good of you." My god-damn voice nearly betrayed me, it sounded so coarse. I offered her the best smile I had at that moment.

She shrugged and shook her head while saying: "It's not a big deal."

"Don't do that." I said a little fucking harshly. She looked at me quizzically. "Don't downplay it. Sacrificing your happiness for someone else...someone you love....that's a..." I cleared my throat hastily, "fucking amazing." Her eyes were boring into mine with concern and I fucking loathed it. I hated feeling weak, but I couldn't pull my eyes away from hers'. _They were so fucking big, blue, dazzling._

When the bell rang, we both jumped slightly. She stood up hastily to pack her things. I didn't even realize we were still in class until the bell interrupted our time.

'Well, I'll see you tomorrow, right?" I asked; I noticed that I sounded a little hopeful. She whipped around to look at me and her fucking pretty hair fell over her shoulders.

"Yea, sure." She said before flashing me a slight smile and walking to the door, stumbling a bit over her own feet. I laughed, I couldn't help it. _That was __fucking cute._ I bent down and began piling my shit into my bag, refusing to watch her retreating figure, lest I turn into that asshole that would shamelessly check her out. _ I won't be an asshole to this girl._

I walked out the door and came face to face with Jasper. He was leaning against the wall with a disapproving look on his face.

"Hey man, what's up?" I asked, even though I had a feeling I knew the answer.

"Not much. I see you're getting along well with your lab partner." He said with a knowing look on his face. I just shrugged. "Look, Edward, you're a cool fucking guy, but if you start hanging around with Bella Swan, you're gonna end up a social outcast just like her."

"I was just being nice. It's not like we're gonna be fucking friends or anything." I said hastily.

"Well, if you want to survive at this school, you'd be better off not talking to her at all. It sucks for her, but that's just the way it is." Jasper looked around the hallway. "I'm just trying to look out for you, alright?"

"Yea, alright. I'll fucking ignore her from now on." Jasper nodded and walked toward the parking lot, with me following him.

I waved to him as I got in my silver Volvo, deciding what I hated more about myself: That I was too much of a fucking coward and I would now start ignoring Bella or that I actually cared what Jasper and his fucking 'cool' friends thought of me. _Fuck, I'm a pathetic sack of shit.___

The worst part was she expected it. She fucking thought that I'd end up being a total prick and pretend that she didn't exist. She didn't look at me the next day in the lunch room while I sat with her old friends and my new group. She didn't even glance up from her book when I came into Biology and sat down next to her. And I didn't look at her. The hour passed slowly and I avoided any and all contact with Bella as best I could while we worked together. I had expected her to get all fucking huffy like she did about her damn lunch table. But she just fucking took it, like it didn't matter one god-damn bit that I was treating her like everyone else did. And it was making me a little fucking angry at her.

_I was such a fucking asshole.__  
_


	3. Chapter 3

Bella's POV:

Edward's not my friend. He was nice to me one time in class, but that doesn't mean he wants to talk to me every day. Don't be a nuisance by trying to talk to him today. Go back to being invisible and if he wants to talk to you, he will. _Good pitiful plan._

I got out of my car Friday morning, repeating the plan over and over again in my head. It's a good thing I was too, because when I saw him across the parking lot in his leather jacket and sunglasses, _Damn, he's hot_, I wanted nothing more than to go and talk to him again. _Don't be a nuisance._ It was so inconsiderate of him to talk to me and smile at me and make me laugh when he knew that we couldn't be friends. _Jerk_. And of course he owns the nicest car in the whole lot. _Stupid Volvo Driving Jerk_.

I was surprised and pleased with myself at how well I disregarded his presence throughout the day. I looked away from him immediately whenever I saw him in the hallway. I kept my nose buried in my book all throughout lunch. And in Biology, I acted as if I had never spoken to him before. Of course it was easy because he was thoroughly ignoring me as well. It hurt much more than it should have. The hour seemed longer than normal, most likely because I couldn't wait to flee from his presence. The smell coming off of him was intoxicating, mint, cream, and a hint of cigarette smoke, and it was making my resolve horribly unstable. When the bell rang, I raced to my old, rusty Ford truck that I adored and barely resisted the urge to spit on his shiny, fucking Volvo. So much for my brief affair with human interaction.

I tried to do homework that night, but my mind was a hopeless wanderer. It strayed to my fresh and already ingrained memories of Edward's crooked smile, his enchanting laugh, his perfect blazing green eyes, the way the sun lit up his messy, bronze hair. I didn't sleep well.

Saturday was even worse.

"Good morning, sweetheart." My mother chirped brightly at me when she flew into the kitchen.

"Morning." I said through a thick yawn.

"Did you sleep at all? You look awful." My mom was always honest; she said it kept her skin clean. She used to tell me that pimples were the ugly marks of lies.

"Wow, thanks mom. I'm fine, really." I put as much sarcasm into my response that I could muster up at this hour.

"Are you sure? You could always come to yoga with me. It supposed to relax you and center your chi." She said whimsically.

"So yoga's the latest trend now?" I asked with a smirk.

"Of course. I think it's what Cameron Diaz does, and God knows I'd love to have her butt." I laughed at my mom's logic before shaking my head.

"It's a tempting offer, but I think I'm just going to go to the bookstore. Have some breakfast before you go." I gestured to the full plate sitting in front of me.

"Oh, pancakes, yummy, thanks sweetie. What would I do without you?" She would never have to find out. She threw down a few bites before giving me a quick hug and rushing out the door. She had more energy at 39 then I'd ever had in my entire life. I cleaned up the kitchen quickly, eager to get outside and find something to occupy my thoughts.

There was one bookstore in my tiny town. It was poorly stocked and I owned basically every book that they had there so I set out to Port Angeles, the nearest city. The drive was long and I found myself going over the conversation Edward and I had had on Thursday, before all the ignoring had begun. He had seemed upset about something but I couldn't remember saying anything that should have upset him. I chose to focus on the parts of our interaction that gave me tingles down my spine: when he laughed at something I said, when he smiled back at me, the way he racked his fingers through his hair, making it impossibly messier.

I sighed at myself, I was such a stupid, hormonal teenage girl. I had a crush; it felt weird since I had sworn to loathe the disdainful gender of males for the rest of my life. Once over the summer I had even considered joining the nunnery. Alice would have called me crazy and scolded me for wasting tits as good as mine on God.

I laughed out loud in the truck, remembering the days when Alice and I would have sleepovers and stay up late, gushing over boys and stealing my mom's Cosmos and practicing flirting with each other. It had all been so innocent and fun. I swallowed thickly as tears welled up in my eyes. _ I hated crying._

I finally got to the bookstore and I rushed inside as the rain picked up. I pulled down the hood on my sweatshirt and glanced around. The store was bigger than any store in Forks, but it was deserted except for the elderly woman behind the cash register and the endless rows of books comforted me as I set off for the nearest aisle. I perused the titles in the novel section, taking my time. I found some of my favorites that I didn't own and I grabbed them all. My mom never objected to buying me books; it must be the teacher gene in her. Or maybe she liked spending all of her alimony money on things I didn't really need.

After 15 minutes, I was holding 9 books, my arms cramping under the weight of them all. I was making my way to the front of the store to get a bag and, _just my fucking luck,_ there he was, walking through the door. Edward looked impossibly hotter with rain dripping from his golden, messy locks and onto his leather jacket. He must have seen me then cause his eyes got wide with shock and he abruptly froze in the doorway. We stared at each other for a split second before the awkwardness overwhelmed me and I turned around to walk back down the aisle. But of course, because I'm me, and because he was there, my exit couldn't be subtle. Fate just didn't want me to get off that easy. I walked right into the nearest bookcase, dropping all the books I'd been holding onto my feet and cursing loudly at the pain.

"Shit, ouch. Damn-it." I growled.

"Are you alright, dear?" The elderly woman asked from her desk.

"Sorry. Yea, I'm fine. I'm so sorry." I knelt on the floor to get my books, refusing to look towards the front of the store. I reached for the copy of Pride and Prejudice I had dropped when five long fingers picked it up and out of my reach.

"Did you drop this?" Edward asked, a smirk crossing his face when I stood up and looked him in the eye. Those perfect brilliant eyes.

"Thanks." I said huffily, snatching the book away from him and walking past him up the aisle. I felt him walking behind me, but I didn't stop; neither did he. I was too embarrassed to face my crush right now. I reached the back wall and sighed out in exasperation. "What do you want?" I asked him, still facing the wall.

He leaned closer to me and electricity coursed through my veins at the close contact. That was so embarrassing because he wasn't even touching me. I breathed in deeply and allowed his heavenly sent to fill up my brain. He put his lips to my ear and his hot breath sent shivers, the good kind, up my neck. "I'm sorry, Bella." He whispered, even though no one would hear him. I thrilled to the sound of him saying my name.

"What for?" I whispered back, slightly breathless, which the somewhat coherent part of my brain screamed was irrational.

He chuckled darkly. "For being such a dick to you on Friday. You don't deserve it."

"It's fine. I'm not an idiot. I didn't expect us to be best friends forever or....anything, for that matter." I tried to laugh nonchalantly but my mouth had gone so dry that I ended up coughing. He sighed next to my ear and leaned away from me. I shook my head to clear the cloudiness his smell had created and turned to face him. He was leaning against the bookcase and watching me intently.

"So, aren't you hooked on phonics?" He said, with that perfectly crooked smile lighting up his glorious face.

Edward's POV:

_I am completely fucked. _I was having the most comfortable and enjoyable day that I'd had in a long fucking time. Being with Bella, talking to her, laughing with her, teasing her, even fucking arguing with her, felt so god-damn normal. I fucking basked in the glory of talking to someone who was actually interesting and a person of substance. I didn't have to feign interest at all with her. We had been talking for hours and I was stilled engrossed in everything she said. Bella was, for lack of a better term, fucking cool as shit. It was quickly becoming crystal clear why she had once been so popular. She was gorgeous, but obviously not into herself; she wasn't even wearing any damn makeup. She had a fucking smart-ass mouth, too and loved rolling her eyes at me when she thought I was being a moron. But it didn't piss me off, it made her even more endearing to me.

Bella was a total Jane Austen freak, but I forgave her when she told me how much she loved On the Road, which had always been my favorite book. She teased me a bit at how much I loved Jurassic Park, but I was listening more to her cute as hell giggling. When we were done pouring over every book in the shop, we walked down the road to the cafe and split a cheese pizza; she wasn't hard to please. Bella wasn't shy about food either, asking for an order of bread sticks, too. When she heard me chuckling in amusement, I assured her that I was just fucking impressed that she actually ate real food; most of the girls at our school were the types to live on fucking veggies and rice cakes. Not Bella; she ate three slices of pizza herself and I just fucking shook my head at her; I had no idea where the hell all those carbs went. There was little, if fucking any, fat on her slight figure.

Our conversation during dinner had turned to music and I enjoyed teasing her when she gushed about how much she loved Coldplay. I tried to fucking stifle my laughter when I saw the blush creep up her neck and face. It didn't take much effort when she turned the questioning on me. I was positive that she'd think I was total fucking loser if I told her the truth that I listened to mostly classical and lounge music. But of course, because she was Bella, she exclaimed that she loved the old time shit and I sighed in relief when she agreed with me that rap music isn't music at all. Our waitress, who had been audaciously flirting with me the whole time we'd been there, was now getting pretty fucking pissed with us because we were the only two people left in the restaurant. I paid for dinner and I thought Bella was going to have a fucking heart attack over it before I assured that she could pay next time. _Next time. _I smiled inwardly at the thought. I had no fucking clue where the time had gone but it was suddenly ten o'clock and we both had to get the fuck home.

"I'm sorry, I'll be home soon, its' not even that late. Okay.....okay......I will.....okay." Bella sighed as she snapped her phone closed.

"Your mom's ticked, huh?" I asked, grinning at Bella's exasperated expression.

"It's so fucking stupid. I am way more responsible at seventeen than she's ever been in her entire fucking life." She huffed while digging through her bag for her keys.

"Fuck, listen to you curse. I think I've been a bad influence on you." I joked, smirking at her. She looked up at me but instead of smiling, like I thought she would be, she fucking surprised me again. She was completely flushed and biting her bottom nervously. She did a lot of cute shit like that.

"Look, today was great. You're really a good guy. But you don't have to do this." She finished with a big sigh.

"What am I doing?" I asked, confused as fuck.

"You don't have to be my friend. It's totally cool, I get it." She smiled reassuringly at me. It looked fucking forced.

"What if I want to be your friend?" I shot back at her.

She let out a shaky laugh. "You don't, trust me. I'm sort of an expert on these things."

"I don't give a shit what anyone thinks." I lied. Shit, I really fucking hated myself sometimes.

"Of course you do, but that's okay. Everyone does, I'm just trying to spare you from any feelings of guilt." Shit, she really meant it.

I ran my fingers through my hair and sighed. She couldn't be more right and on top of it she was trying to protect me. _I don't fucking deserve it._ I don't know what made me say it, maybe all her fucking honesty was inspiring me or some shit, maybe I just wanted to see her smile for real one more time tonight, maybe I just fucking wanted her to know. "Look, Bella, I like you. You're cool as shit and fucking funny. I had a great time with you today. I'd like to hang out with you again." I said in a rush, staring at the fucking ground. I wasn't usually this nervous around girls.

"Okay." She said softly. I looked up at her then and she was smiling, a real fucking smile that lit up her face. "Just not at school." She added hastily. "I don't think I could take any more rumors about me going around." Her face fell a bit as she said the last words.

"We'll be secret friends, like when you're little and you didn't want anyone to know that you were actually friends with a girl." She quirked an eyebrow at me in confusion. "Cause they fucking had cooties." I explained. Her tinkling laugh filled my head again.

"You got a deal Edward Cullen." She held out her hand to me as a fist and I rolled my eyes at her before knocking it gently with my own.

"So, you free tomorrow?" I asked, hoping to fucking god that she was.

"Sure, where are we going?" She asked, taking me off guard again.

"I'll think of something." I smiled slyly at her.

Bella shot one more smile at me before turning around, swinging all that shiny fucking hair of hers over her shoulder and walking to her truck.

I turned to go to my Volvo when I heard her call back to me.

"And just FYI, I never had cooties." She said loudly with a teasing tone to her voice.

"Oh, what-the-fuck-ever!." I yelled back at her making her laugh one last time that night.

The drive home was long. There was a foreign feeling in me that I couldn't place. It was uncomfortable and irritating. I turned the music up, attempting to distract myself, but the CD I was listening to only made my stomach twist more. I cringed. _Fuck you, Frank Sinatra, you're not helping._ I turned the radio on and the obnoxious rap shit that flowed out of it made me fucking smile and groan simultaneously. And that's when it hit me like a ton of fucking bricks. _I fucking miss that girl already_. The thought of Bella intensified the fucking aching in my stomach. I fished a cigarette and my lighter out of my jacket pocket, hoping that might ease the pain. I took a long drag and exhaled in relief. I changed the station and fucking smiled when I heard Yellow by Coldplay. I had never liked the song but I listened to the whole fucking thing as I drove towards home, thinking of where I'd take Bella the next day.

Bella's POV:

_Shit. I look like I'm trying too fucking hard._ _It's not even a fucking date. We're secret buddies or some shit like that. He's fucking hot and there's_ _no way he's even thinking of you like that. This could all be a setup to humiliate you anyway. He probably doesn't like you at all. Guys lie all the time.___

_Shut the fuck up, Bella.__  
_  
Edward was different. I just had a gut feeling that he was good. Anyone that good-looking had to have a soul to match. I looked at myself in the full-length mirror one more time before cursing my idea of wearing a dress and pulled on a pair of dark denim jeans, my converse shoes and a cream-colored v-neck sweater. Much more relaxed. To my relief, my hair was actually cooperating we me, falling in delicate curls over my shoulders. I pulled half of it back in a clip, knowing that humidity was not my friend. Finally satisfied with my appearance, I went downstairs to leave a note for Renee.

Edward had texted me that morning to meet him on the highway. I had no idea what he was up to but the building anticipation was very exciting. He was leaning against his Volvo, looking like a perfect replica of James Dean in his leather jacket and sunglasses, with a cigarette between his lips, as I pulled onto the shoulder and hopped out of my truck. I sighed as he looked up and flashed that perfect, crooked smile at me.

"Hey." His velvety voice greeted me. He sounded excited.

"Hi." I smiled back at him. "So what are we doing here?" We were in the middle of nowhere surrounded by forest on both sides of the road.

"You'll see. Follow me." He called back to me as he threw a bulging backpack over his shoulder and turned to walk up a pathway into the woods. I followed him, delighting in the view that his snug jeans were creating. We walked in silence for twenty minutes and I was beginning to get impatient, considering how many times I had tripped once he had led us off of the trail. Edward always turned to offer me his hand to help me up, usually with a smug smile on his face. And every time his casual contact with me would send shivers up my arm and through my chest and down my spine. I couldn't decide if it was because this was the first male contact I'd had in months, or if it was because it was Edward touching me. I really hoped it was because of Edward.

I was getting ready to complain about the never-ending hike when Edward stopped abruptly and I nearly ran into him. "We're here." He exclaimed with the most excited look on his face. _So fucking hot. _I finally looked away from him to see where he'd brought me. We were on the edge of a cliff, with the most spectacular view of a sparkling lake. There were mountains surrounding the water on every side and a beautiful waterfall could be seen on one of the mountains in the distance. It was the most beautiful place I'd ever been.

"Wow." I whispered. He laughed loudly and the sound of it echoed back to us. Edward snapped a photo of me staring at the scenery with my mouth hanging open. I hadn't even noticed him taking out his fancy, technical-looking camera.

"Pretty fucking cool, huh?" He asked with the smuggest look on his face I'd ever seen. I couldn't blame him.

"It's incredible. I've lived here my whole life and I've never seen anything like this. How did you find this place?"

He shrugged. "I wanted to take some pictures so I just wandered around in the woods until I found this spot."

"I didn't know you liked photography." As I found out more about him, he got impossibly hotter.

"Yea, my mom got me started on it. She was always taking pictures of everything. Even shit that no one gave a fucking care about." His spoke wistfully and I didn't fail to notice his use of the past tense. He sighed and offered me a slight smile before snapping another picture of me.

"Stop it!" I exclaimed in mock annoyance. I was actually thrilled that he was taking my picture. "If you'd give me a warning, I'd smile or something."

"Hell no, the best pictures are always the most natural." He winked at me. _Holy fucking Shit. I might die right here._

We spent the day just chilling out and talking. We were sitting on a blanket and snacking on a plethora of junk food that Edward had brought. He would get up randomly and walk around taking more pictures of the scenery. He explained that he liked to get new angles as the light changed. He took a few more pictures of me when I wasn't ready and his buoyant laughter would fill the area when he'd see my look of outrage.

The silences between our conversations were never awkward, just comfortable and peaceful. I had never been so comfortable around anyone before. It was so easy to be with him. That realization excited me and scared the living shit out of me simultaneously. I didn't allow myself to get close to people anymore, but I was breaking all my rules and I knew that I'd continue to do so because I couldn't find a good enough reason to stay away from him when he smiled at me.

Edward was sprawled on the ground with his eyes closed while I sat watching his chest rise and fall underneath his black shirt. The sun was setting and the wind had picked up a bit. Edward hadn't even hesitated to take off his jacket and throw it to me. I was greedily breathing in his scent, which was all minty and smoky, deciding how to approach the topic that had been on my mind all day. I decided that straightforward was always the best way.

"Edward?" I was tentative. The last thing I wanted to do was upset him.

"Hmmm" he replied without opening his eyes.

"Where's your mother?" I asked meekly. I didn't want to upset him, but today was the first time he'd ever mentioned her and no one in town ever spoke of a Mrs. Cullen. I watched his jaw clench and his hand become a fist in the grass at his side. He opened his eyes slowly and looked at me and all the green was ablaze with bitterness and sadness. "I'm sorry. Shit, I didn't want to pry, I was just wondering, it's none of my business, I am so sorry." I rambled, trying to smooth over the awkwardness I had created.

"I told you not to apologize to me. All you did was ask me a question." He said while sitting up and running a hand through his disheveled hair. His voice was laced with anguish and my heart seared with pain to hear it. He never looked away from the grass as he talked and I listened intently. "My mother died...last year. She was so perfect, like the perfect mom, June Clever and all that shit. But she wasn't happy." His barely whispered the last word. "I never understood why, it's not like she would talk to me about it, but I could tell." He swallowed thickly and I realized that he was tearing up. His voice was impossibly more pained when he continued. "I found her on the bathroom floor. I was home from school, like any other fucking day, but she wasn't there to greet me like she usually was, so I went to look for her." He dropped his head into his hands. My heart broke at the sight of him being so vulnerable and in pain. "The carpet was so fucking red and she was so...fucking cold. I called 911 but I knew I was too late." Tears were slowly falling down my face by that point. "And I fucking hate her for it. I know I sound like a dick, but she was just fucking gone, like that, no explanation, no goodbye, no apology. Who the fuck can just leave people like that?...Bitch." The last word broke him and he was openly sobbing now. I rushed over to him and threw my arms around his shaking body. He wrapped his arms around my waist and buried his face into my shoulder, staining my sweater with his tears. I began stroking his hair and his back while he cried into my hair. I don't know how long we sat there but eventually his breathing began to even out. Like it even mattered, I would've held him for the rest of time.

"After it happened, everyone, even my friends, started acting different around me, like they could catch her depression from me or something." He spoke into my neck, his warm breath warming his tears on my skin. "My dad sent me to a therapist, thinking that it would help, instead of talking to me himself. It felt like he fucking blamed me for it because if her own child couldn't make her happy, who could, right?"

"It's not your fault. You can't think like that." I whispered to him softly, while pulling my fingers through his soft hair.

He sighed against my neck, raising goose bumps on my arms, and slowly pulled away from me. His eyes were completely blood-shot and his face was streaked with tears.

I brushed my fingers over his cheek and wiped away the last of his tears when he brought his hand up to mine and held it to his face. He leaned his cheek into my palm and breathed in deeply. I soothingly rubbed my thumb over his cheekbone and offered him a little smile. His hand moved mine to rest over his mouth and I wasn't smiling anymore, I was fucking panting. He lightly pressed his smooth lips to my fingers and murmured a thank you to me from behind our fingers. I couldn't say anything. I tried to pour all of my sorrow for what had happened to him into my eyes while we looked at each other. He dropped our hands and intertwined our fingers before pulling me up to my feet.

I helped him pack up everything and we made our way back to the cars. It was dark now that the sun had completely set and he never let go of my hand, keeping me close to him while we walked through the forest. I internally groaned when we made it back to the highway. I didn't want to leave him, I didn't want him to let go of my hand, I didn't want to wait another week until we spoke again. But life isn't fair. He dropped my hand to open my truck door for me and I grudgingly climbed in and slammed the door closed. I rolled down the window to say goodnight to him.

"Can I see you tomorrow, after school?" He asked with hope in his voice.

"Of course." I nodded a little too enthusiastically. He chuckled a bit and I was happy to hear his laughter again.

"I promise not to have another nervous breakdown." He said while embarrassingly shuffling his feet . "Thanks for um....calming me down."

"I'd gladly do it again." I blurted out honestly. He laughed again and leaned into the window to give me a swift kiss on the cheek. My skin blazed where his lips had touched it.

"See you tomorrow." He whispered before turning away and leaving me too soon.

"Wait, your jacket!" I yelled at his retreating form.

"Keep it. It looks better on you, anyway." He called over his shoulder, giving me a quick wink and his beautiful crooked smile.

How anyone could hurt him like that I couldn't imagine. How he wasn't able to make his mother happy seemed incomprehensible to me. Edward made me happier than I'd been by crying into my shoulder and letting me stroke his hair. I hated his mother a little bit for leaving him as well. But I couldn't completely overlook the fact that she was the reason he was alive. I couldn't hate her too much. __

I slept in Edward Cullen's leather jacket that night peacefully for the first time in months.


	4. Chapter 4

**I hadn't originally planned on this chapter but I thought this story could use a little fluff before even more angst starts to come out! Please enjoy and review!!**

Edward's POV:

I had never fucking cried in front of a girl before. I felt like such a god-damn pussy. Bella had to hold me like a fucking baby while I openly sobbed into her shoulder. I couldn't even enjoy the feeling of her body wrapped around mine; I was so overcome with pain. I don't even know why I told her. As a rule, I never spoke about _that _with anyone. Not even with those fucking therapists that Carlisle had paid so much money to; hence the little blue happy pills that I was now desperately searching for by tearing my bathroom apart. I finally gave up and went to the sanctuary of my balcony with my cigarettes and lighter. The ache in my chest hadn't been this bad when I'd been with Bella, but the second she drove away, it tore me up from the inside.

As I sat there, waiting for the pain in my chest to subside, I thought about Bella. I realized that I didn't mind her knowing the most tragic story of my existence, when that would normally bug the shit out of me. Maybe it was because there was no chance she would ever tell anyone, but I didn't think so. It was because I trusted her. Fucking weird. I'd spent a grand total of two days with her and I already trusted her more than anyone I'd ever known. She was my secret friend and I wanted her to know all my secrets. It felt fucking good to know that I didn't have to hide one damn thing from her. She had just witnessed me at my worst and instead of distancing herself from me and all my emotional bullshit, she had brought herself closer. Bless her fucking heart.

I finished my cigarette and walked inside to get ready for bed. I avoided the mirror, not wanting to see what was left of my fucking breakdown on my face. I flopped down on my bed and turned off the light. My thoughts were still revolving around Bella when I drifted off to sleep.

I was back by the lake, talking to Bella when I saw a glistening tear fall down her cheek. I wiped it away hastily, hating seeing it there on someone so sweet. I cupped my hand behind her neck and pulled her face to mine. Her eyes fluttered closed and she opened her lips a little bit. I sucked her bottom lip into mine urgently and she was just as eager to suck on my top lip. I pulled her closer to me and shoved my tongue into her mouth. She pressed back against mine fiercely and it was so soft and fucking warm that I sucked on it roughly…

I awoke with a start as my fucking alarm clock started blaring by my head. I groaned when the full pain of my hard-as-fuck morning wood was finally registered. I usually woke up in the middle of the night, fucking shaking from a debilitating nightmare. Last night, however, I had slept through the night for the first time in a fucking year. It had to be Bella. There was no other fucking explanation. I had fallen asleep thinking about her and had even had a dream about her. A really good fucking dream. I jumped into the shower and jerked off desperately to the lingering images of her tongue in my mouth.

I was anxious to see Bella and I fucking liked the feeling. I hadn't had much in my life to look forward to in a long fucking time. I didn't see her until lunch and then I only stole brief glances at her from my table across the room. She looked beautiful and tiny, hunching in on herself, slouching. I hated seeing her there now, so alone, me in the place where she use to fit. I decided to talk to her about it after school. After all, she had already seen me at my most vulnerable.

"What the fuck are you staring at?" Emmet asked loudly. _Shit, was I staring at her?_

"Nothing" I blurted out, turning my attention back to the people in front of me. They didn't look convinced. Jasper looked over his shoulder to where Bella was sitting and then turned back to me quickly with a knowing look in his eyes. I suppressed a groan. "I'm just out of it, didn't get enough sleep last night." I mumbled lamely.

"Oh yea, and who's to blame for that?" Emmet asked with a smirk.

"I'm not fucking that slut." I insisted forcefully. I knew he was talking about that Jessica Stanley bitch that had vowed to be the first bitch in Forks to fuck me. She certainly was a classy girl.

"Thank god, that'd be like begging for an STD." Rosalie sneered, she had her moments. I laughed with the rest of them.

"You could probably get one just from looking at her for too long." Alice .used

"Be nice, babe. It can't be easy to live with HIV." Jasper said in mock seriousness.

"Well, you would know." Emmet teased him.

"Fuck you, man." Jasper said, pissed off suddenly.

"I told you I don't swing that way, Jas." Emmet ducked fast enough to miss the empty soda can Jasper chucked at his head.

"For fuck sake, can't we get through one lunch without you two throwing shit at each other?" I asked, half-amused, half-ticked off. "How do you girls date these two fucking morons?" I directed to Alice and Rosalie, who were both ignoring the fact that chips were being chucked across the table between their retard boyfriends.

"After a while, you learn to ignore it." Rosalie said while stifling a yawn.

"We use to think it was cute. Now we choose to block it out." Alice added with a nod. "Speaking of relationships," Alice perked up. "Is there anyone here that's good enough for Edward Cullen?" She said my name in a reverent voice and I rolled my eyes at her.

"Unfortunately, the two best girls at Forks are already taken." I said, gesturing to her and Rosalie. I could be a charming bastard when I wanted to be. Rosalie smiled but Alice wasn't buying it.

"Come on, Eddie." She said in a sickly sweet voice. I groaned at the nickname that Emmet had started. "It's not a secret that you're a pretty good-looking, sexy guy."

"Ali, really, I'm right fucking here." Jasper said while pulling a chip out of his greasy blonde hair.

"Don't worry, honey. You're completely irresistible to me." Alice said in a dead tone before she dusted off the front of his shirt. She rolled her eyes and turned back to me. "There's got to be someone at this school that's caught your eye." Jasper cleared his throat in an obvious way and leaned toward me.

"Yeah, Ed, isn't there anyone you like looking at?" Jasper asked in his smug, all-knowing voice.

"Well, there is but I don't think Alice is willing to give you up." I said jokingly before Emmet and I burst out laughing.

"Fucking pricks." Jasper mumbled before he slouched in his chair and Alice began soothing him by running her fingers through his hair. I noticed she was trying to hold back a few snickers of her own.

An odd feeling came over me in that moment. It was that fucking fifth wheel feeling. I glanced at Bella while everyone else was preoccupied and I could see the picture of her and me sitting at this table together so clearly. It was fucking weird how easily I could see it, like it was meant to be or some shit. Bella sitting next to me, laughing with everyone, while my fingers stroked her hair lovingly…_Stop it Edward. She doesn't want that._

I sighed in defeat as I realized that my fucking awesome dream may never come to be.

We kept up a careful indifference between us in Biology, but she did look at me a few times and I knew that she was trying to judge what kind of mood I was in. I didn't have to try and keep a peaceful expression. I was fucking fine, better than fine and it was because of Bella. Her close proximity to me was making it hard for me to concentrate. I kept daydreaming about the sexy, fucking dream and every time I saw her lick her lips, I'd dig my fingers into my thigh, willing my dick to stay the fuck down.

When the bell rang, I stayed seated and so did she, although she bent down to gather her things and shove them into her bag. We were both waiting for the room to empty so that we could set plans for this afternoon. I was a little too fucking happy about that fact that she didn't rush from the school at the sound of the bell, but had stayed back to finalize plans with me. Once we were alone, the atmosphere completely changed. One second we were just sitting next to each other complacently. The next, there was a fucking energy between us that was so damn potent it felt hard to breathe.

"So, um…you…you still want to hang out?" She asked nervously. She bit her bottom lip waiting for my answer. _Cute shit._

"Yeah, of course I do." I said with much more enthusiasm than I was comfortable with. But she smiled at me so I figured that was worth it. "Meet you at the lake in, like a half an hour?"

"Sounds good; are you hungry?" A faint blush painted her cheeks.

"Actually yeah, Em ate my lunch." I groaned.

"He does that." Her laugh was so adorable but it was mingled with a far-off sad look in her eyes. "OK, well I'll meet ya there." She began to move toward the door.

"What about lunch?" I asked her, suddenly fucking starving. _Fucking Emmet._

"I'll take care of it." She sounded like she was gloating. I just smiled at her and headed out to the parking lot. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I didn't run into any of my friends before I got in my car and sped away from the school to our place. _Our place, I like the sound of that._

I pulled off the road, grabbed my bag full of shit that'd I'd packed this morning in anticipation for the afternoon and began walking up the trail even though I didn't see her truck. I spread out the blanket on the damp ground and pulled out the small stereo that'd I brought and put on some Beatles. Bella really loved the Beatles. When "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" started playing I laughed out loud when the mental image of Bella's small warm hand shaking mine flew into my head. _Shit, I really wanted to hold her hand._ This feeling of actually wanting to be around someone was such a nice change of pace from the way I had been reacting to human interaction for the past year. I thoroughly expected to end up complaining to Oprah about how my mother ruined my life. But maybe Bella could save me from a lifetime of therapy and little blue pills…

I heard a soft musical chuckle and spun around quickly to see Bella standing by the trail, holding a big bag full of what I hoped to be food.

"What's so funny?" I asked as she continued to snicker.

"I had no idea you had so many smooth dance moves." She managed to giggle out. _Fuck was I dancing. _"Will you teach me how to move like you?"

I narrowed my eyes at her, trying to find the strength within me to say no, but of course I wouldn't pass a chance up to hold her close to my body and tell her how to move against it. "Maybe after we eat; you're going to need your fucking strength to keep up with me." _Was I still talking about dancing?_

"Deal, Edward." She frowned in consideration for a moment. "Edward is so formal, can I call you Eddie?" She asked with a devilishly playful smile.

"Not if you expect me to answer." I growled before joining in her laughter. "Give me that food, Belle." I ordered, trying to get a rise out of her.

"See, that doesn't work because that's a good nickname." She mused while swaying the bag of food back and forth.

"Well, if you like it so much then I'll always call you Belle." _My Belle, fuck what was this chick doing to me. _She smiled at me sweetly and turned a bright crimson red. "So, what are we eating?" I asked, wanting to smooth over the cute, fucking awkward moment.

Bella pulled out a container and held it up to me. "Enchiladas?" She said as a question, looking somewhat apprehensive.

"Where did you get those?" The container was obviously not a take-out kind.

"I made them, last night, these were left over. Is that OK?" She looked so nervous that I smiled broadly at her to make her feel better.

"That's great. You never told me you could cook." I accused playfully.

"You never asked." She smirked as I rolled my eyes at her.

We settled down onto the blanket to enjoy our lunch, which turned out to be fucking delicious. I ate every bit of the three enchiladas that Bella put in front of me, making yummy noises without even really realizing it.

"Oh my fucking god. That was delicious. Who taught you how to cook?" I asked before licking clean my fork and lying down completely on my back and sighing happily.

She giggled lightly at my satisfied expression before talking. "I guess I sort of taught myself. I never got anything decent to eat when my mom tried to cook."

"Does that bother you?" I asked, turning to look at her.

"Does what bother me?" She looked at me confusedly.

"Having to be all fucking grown-up and mature already?" I ran my hands through my hair while gauging her wary reaction to my question.

"I'm not mature. I do really stupid and irrational things…a lot." She said in one quick breath. She was looking around herself, refusing to meet my gaze.

"I don't believe you." I said pointedly and she finally looked at me with her eyebrows furrowed. "What stupid, irrational thing have you done lately?"

"Hmm…" She considered, pursing her lips. "Well I agreed to go into the woods alone with you. That was not very smart." She finished just in time to duck out of the way of the paper plate that I balled up and threw at her.

"Bitch..." I mumbled before she gave me a heartbreaking smile that I couldn't help but return. I saw her flush a little before she spoke again.

"Seriously, though, I've made some wrong decisions in my life that I can never take back." She looked down at her hands and her voice sounded pained. "I've put it all behind me, I just…I don't really like to talk about…"

"It's ok." I said quickly before she could get any more upset. Her head snapped up to me and our eyes locked.

"Thanks." She whispered. The air around us grew insanely tense as we looked at each other. I was filled with a sudden fucking over-whelming notion that I could have sat there on the edge of that cliff and stared into Bella's deep blue eyes for the rest of my life.

"So are you ready to teach me to dance?" She finally questioned, breaking her trance she had on me.

"Absolutely, on your feet Belle." I demanded while I stood up swiftly and held my hand out to her. She grabbed my hand and I yanked her up quickly to standing. I pulled her close to me and wrapped my arm around her waist, breathing deeply at the sensations the close contact sent surging through my blood. She rested her arm gently on my shoulder and took a deep breath herself as I brought our clasped hands out to the side. We stood like that for a moment before I realized what the fuck was wrong.

"We need music." I flatly stated, but I didn't move away from her.

"You have to go hit play for that to happen." She said breathlessly.

"For what to happen?" I asked like a total fucking moron. It was fucking ridiculous that I felt short of breath. We weren't even moving.

"For the music to play." She said, crinkling up her face into the cutest confused expression. I smiled at her, took a deep breath, dropped her hand and went over to the CD player and pressed play. "Hallelujah" by Rufus Wainwright started to play; I took another steadying breath before I turned back around to look at her. She looked up to my eyes quickly and flushed a deep red before giving me an embarrassed smile and holding her arms out in position again. I had a fleeting hope that she had been checking out my ass. I walked back to her and resumed our previous position.

"Try to follow my steps, ok? It's that easy." I said, giving her my charming crooked smile. I began taking small steps and rotating us in a circle. She stumbled a bit and I held onto her tighter; her head reached my nose and the breeze blew her hair into my face.

"This might be easier if I stand on your feet." She said while concentrating hard on her steps. I laughed inward toward her neck and subsequently took in a deep breath of her coconut-smelling hair. I felt her sigh heavily next to me. That only made me fucking smile more.

"You can do it. We'll just have to practice more." I said while trying to inhale more of her intoxicating scent.

"Practice does make perfect." She breathed onto my neck, sending another round of fucking electric pulses through my body. I turned us slowly in a circle, not even attempting to keep time with the music. She felt so fucking right in my arms, like they were made for her and simply waiting for her to fall into them.

The song ended too soon and the shuffle was on so of course the next song that the gods so graciously picked to play at this very intimate moment was Light My Fire by The Doors. _Fucking awkward, considering that Bella was doing just that to me._ I instantly let go of her and gave her my best apology face before rushing to my I-pod to pick a more appropriate song.

"I think that's good for my first lesson." I heard Bella say behind me. She sounded winded and I smiled to myself. That dance was hardly exerting; she and I seemed to be having a synonymous reaction to each other.

"You're probably right; it's getting dark anyway." I noticed a hint of sadness in my voice at the thought of our day together ending.

We walked back to our cars, staying a good 5 feet away from each other the entire way. My hand ached to grab a hold of hers' but my brain screamed at me to keep shit normal, casual. I shoved my hand into my pocket, just for good measure.

"I enjoyed the dance. Thank you. I don't think I've slow-danced with anyone since the sixth grade." She laughed lightly while opening her car door.

"My pleasure. I'm just relieved you didn't step on my toes. I'm also impressed that you managed to get through an entire song without falling down or tripping." I joked with her before she promptly whipped around and smacked me hard on the chest.

"Ok, so I might not be the most graceful girl…"

"And the under-exaggerating award goes to…" I beamed in an announcement voice.

"But at least I make up for it in cuteness." She finished with a smile. I smiled right back at her but said nothing. _Fuck, was this the third time today that we just fucking stared at each other._

"Drive safe, Belle." I whispered, standing close enough to her that I knew she'd hear.

"Thanks. See you at school." She said before quickly getting in her car and pulling out onto the road.


	5. Chapter 5

Edward's POV:

Life was...different. Not bad, just a little fucking weird. I was really fucking happy. I kept smiling like a god-damn moron. Jasper and Emmet were convinced that I was being gloriously fucked by Jessica Stanley, the sluttiest, easiest whore in school. She had been relentlessly pursuing me for a few weeks now, offering to do things to me that usually only happened in pornos. But she had less than nothing to do with my elated mood.

Bella was like a fucking drug to me. Being around her always made me forget about shit. She could always make me fucking smile and laugh. I was becoming addicted to her scent, her face, her laugh. I saw her every fucking day, but only after school. We would spend the afternoons at the bookstore or on our mountainside, just fucking hanging out or doing our homework or talking. I'd bring a stereo and we'd chill out and listen to music for hours. And simple shit like that was making happier than I'd ever been.

School was fucking fun too. It was a thrill to have a secret like ours. I'd hang with her old group of friends, smiling to myself when I'd think about laughing with Bella at everything that they said later. We kept a careful distance from each other and we only spoke during Biology, and then it was just about the god-damn assignment. I'd catch her eye in the hallway or across the courtyard and we smiled briefly at each other before returning to our facade. I liked that she was my secret friend, even though I felt like we were far past friendship. She was like my secret soul mate. We fit together so perfectly, got along so effortlessly. And I had her all to my fucking self. I got to hear her every thought because she only had me to fucking talk to. I loved it.

But, of course, because life was never easy for me, I hadn't got to fucking kiss her yet. It was all I could think about. Bella's perfect lips and tongue. Fuck, I wanted to suck on them. But I was scared shit-less. I didn't want anything to change and I was fucking terrified that if I followed my heart and my fucking horny teenage hormones that I would piss her off or, fucking worse, that she just wouldn't kiss me back. I didn't think I could handle that shit. I got the feeling, sometimes, that she fucking wanted me too, but girls were always so fucking confusing and I was the first person she had trusted in so long. I couldn't just ambush her like I would any other fucking girl. I was her safety net. I had to be, I wanted to be different with her. _I will not be an overly-horny motherfucking asshole to Bella._

But the waiting was making my dick painfully hard every fucking night. Until.....

It was a Saturday afternoon and we were hanging out at our special spot by the lake. Bella and I were lying side by side on our stomachs on the blanket that I always brought. Our arms were almost touching. She was reading To Kill a Mockingbird, again, and I was looking through a stack of photos that I had developed the day before. The pictures were mostly nature scenes but I stopped flipping the photos when I saw the one that I had taken of Bella staring out at the mountains. Her eyes were wide with wonder and her mouth was hanging open a bit. Her hair was tucked behind her little ear. Her profile was smooth and elegant, illuminated by the sunlight behind her. I glanced over at the real-life Bella beside me and smiled as I watched her tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. Her fucking adorable ear. I wanted to suck on that too. She caught me staring at her and murmured "pervert" under her breath. At that I picked up a pile of leaves and threw them onto her back and hair. She gawked at me and shoved my shoulder playfully. I pushed her back gently but she nearly fell over at the force; she was so fucking delicate. I laughed out loud when she used all the force in her small arms to push me again but didn't budge me at all. "Shut-up" she said acting all fucking offended but she was smiling. I reached over and started tickling her. She laughed and begged me to stop while trying to roll away from me. I moved to straddle her and she was flat on her back with me sitting on her thighs, tickling her until she was writhing and panting under me.

"Oh my god, Edward, cut it out; stop it, stop, stop!" She gasped out through giggles. She was trying to push my arms away but she was no match for me. She changed tactics and started tickling me instead. _Holy Shit. I hate being tickled. _

"Okay, I'll stop. Just Stop It!" I yelled out, already breathless from laughing. I held my hands up in a surrendering gesture and she removed her hands from my stomach and brought them down to rest on my thighs.

"So you can dish it out, but you can't take it, huh?" She panted, smiling up at me. But I wasn't fucking listening. I was watching her chest heaving with her deep breathing under her thin gray tank top. Her breasts were straining against the fabric and my dick was really enjoying the fucking view. I lowered my hands and rested them on top of hers. I darted my eyes to her lips and she fucking licked them in anticipation. I looked up to her eyes, which had become intense and smoldering.

"I want to fucking kiss you. I've wanted to kiss you for fucking forever." Her eyes fucking glowed when she heard that and she licked her lips again and nodded slightly. I moved my hands to either side of her head and lowered myself slowly and gently to lie down on top of her. I was taking my time, fucking relishing in feeling her every curve underneath me. I saw her eyes close when I lowered my face slowly to hers. I pressed my mouth against hers gently. Her mouth opened to my lips immediately and I took her bottom lip in between mine and sucked it gently. She tasted better than I had ever imagined. Her soft sigh bathed my face with her hot breath and she sucked my top lip into her mouth urgently. She seemed to be as desperate for this as I had been. I smiled into her mouth when I felt her warm soft tongue lick my lip and plunge into my mouth. I massaged her tongue with mine, while tangling my hand into her hair and tilting her head back so that I could thrust my tongue completely into her mouth. She fucking liked that shit and I felt her wrap her leg around my waist and pull me closer to her, grinding my package into her crotch. I was so fucking hard by then that I fucking started to dry hump her, right there on the cold hard ground. I felt a little ashamed at myself for doing this to her out in the open but she fucking moaned into my mouth at the new friction and my movements against her became more frantic. I pulled away from her mouth, desperate for air and I felt her hot, wet mouth latch onto my neck. _Fuck, she's good at this shit._ Her hands tangled into my hair and pulled me impossibly closer to her. She nibbled and sucked and licked her way up my neck, over my jawbone, and she grazed her teeth over my ear. I fisted my hand into the grass when she said the fucking sexiest thing any girl had ever said to me.

"You taste amazing." Her voice was all fucking husky and breathless and I couldn't hold back the groan that it brought from my mouth. I pulled her mouth back to mine greedily and the movements of our tongues were so fucking urgent. Her chest was pressed fully to mine, her nails digging long lines into my back. I felt her other leg wrap around my waist and I knew I had to stop this shit soon. The hormone-enraged teenager fucker part of my brain was screaming to tear off her clothes and feel her wrapped tightly around my hard dick. But the other part of my brain, the part that adored Bella and wanted to love her the way she deserved to be, finally won the battle raging in my head. I wanted it to be fucking special. I wanted to make her feel fucking important and I was pretty sure that fucking her outside on the grass was not the right way. She deserved much better. She pulled herself up with me when I tried to get off of her, refusing to loosen her grip on my neck or my lips. I put my hands gently on either side of her face and I heard her sigh in defeat as I softly pushed her away. She was sitting on my lap though so I hoped that she wouldn't feel entirely rejected. "What's wrong?" She asked, biting down on her red and slightly swollen lips.

"Nothing, I want this, I want you. You have no idea. But not like this. You deserve better. It should be special." I explained, embarrassing myself quite fucking thoroughly. I was the chick in this fucked-up situation. And to make matters worse, she was fucking pressing her lips together, clearly holding back her laugh. I felt my hard-on literally go limp at the sight.

"I had no idea you were such a prude, Edward." She gasped through her laughing.

"Shut the fuck up." I said as she held her hand up to her mouth to hold in her giggling. I shoved her off of me and stood up, packing all of our shit up while she watched me all fucking amused. "Yea, okay bitch, I hope you enjoy walking home." I yelled at her as I started walking back to my car. I heard her jump up and follow me but I didn't turn to look at her. I was a little peeved about all her fucking laughing. I was trying to be the good guy for the first time in my fucking life.

I threw my bag into the backseat and slammed the door shut. She was waiting for me, leaning against the driver's door and gazing at me with big, puppy dog eyes. I made my way to stand in front of her and she put her arms on my shoulders. I folded mine. Bella looked fucking adorable with her pouty lip and her big, sad eyes. I tried my best not to smile.

"I'm sorry. You're right. Do you think you'll ever forgive me?" She asked, running her fingers through my hair. _Fuck me; I couldn't even remember why I was supposed to be mad at her anymore.___

"Yea, I guess so." I said softly. She leaned up to me then and softly pressed her lips to mine. I snaked my arms around her waist and brought her closer to me. She pulled away from my mouth and put her lips to my ear.

"So, you're not going to make me walk home are you?" She whispered huskily.

"Oh, no, you're fucking walking." I chided giving her lovely ass a light slap and pulling her away from the car. I got in quickly and started the car while she ran as fast as she could to the other side. She almost had her hand on the handle when I hit the gas and drove the car away from her a little bit. I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw her standing with her arms folded, tapping her foot. _Ha ha, who's laughing now? _ I rolled down the window and yelled at her to get the fuck in. She walked slowly to the car and got in in a huffy silence. I reached over and took her hand in mine, rubbing soothing circles on the back of her hand. I saw her smile slightly and figured I was forgiven. I held her hand the entire ride back, letting go only to park the Volvo in her driveway.

"Well, today was interesting. Um...thanks." She said awkwardly. _Fucking adorable._

"My pleasure." I said. She nodded and smiled while getting out of the car. I yelled out to her through the window. "I can't wait to do it again." I smirked at her, winking. She smiled widely and sighed in relief. _Good fucking day._


	6. Chapter 6

Bella's POV:

I shaved my legs three times, which may seem excessive, but for the dress I was wearing, it was essential. Every curve of my body was being hugged by the midnight blue satin fabric which barely reached the mid-point of my upper thigh. Alice used to call it my sex dress. I had my curled hair pulled into a low ponytail which hung down over my left shoulder and down past my chest. I was wearing my favorite silver kitten heels that made my butt look great. I was impatiently waiting in the living room holding onto Edward's leather jacket, begging for the clock to speed up so that I didn't have to wait 15 minutes before he got here. I had been on pins and needles since Edward had called me that morning and asked me to join him for dinner. Now I was almost bouncing with anticipation.

"God, honey, don't give away the farm." My mom reproached me as she walked into the living room.

"Relax, mom. Edward is a perfect gentleman."

"Well, I wish I could say something similar about my daughter." I rolled my eyes at her. Why did she have to choose now to become parental? "Promise me just one thing, Bella?"

"What's that?" I asked skeptically.

"Please use protection." She said seriously.

"Oh my god, I promise, as long as we stop talking about this right now." I answered, thoroughly grossed out.

"Fine, fine. I know you're responsible. So, do I get to meet this young man that has you so smitten?" She asked, with a knowing look in her eye.

"Ugh, I'm not smitten." I said, shaking my head at her.

"Um, sweetheart, I'm your mother, I know you better than anyone. And I know for a fact that you have never been this excited waiting for a guy to show up." I knew she was right, but I didn't want to admit it. I was quite terrified that if Edward and I started dating and something went wrong, breaking us up, then I would surely die. I wasn't sure if I'd survive going back to Invisible Girl after all the attention I had been getting from him, especially yesterday's attention.

"You'll understand when he gets here. He's...perfect." I couldn't think of a better word to describe him. I heard a car door slam and jumped up, excited for our first real date.

"I'll get it!" My mom squealed as she ran to the door. I followed close behind. Edward knocked only once on the door when my mom threw it open, and then, to my utter horror, she gasped at him. It's not her fault, I told myself. He looked hotter, no sexier, than I had ever seen him before, dressed in a black dress shirt, the first few buttons opened to reveal his smooth chest, which was tucked into dark denim jeans. All the black made his emerald eyes jump out. His hair was perfectly tousled and my favorite crooked smile was locked into place. That is, until he saw me. Then his mouth fell open a bit.

"Hi, I'm Renee, Bella's mom." My mom interrupted his gawking, holding out her hand to Edward.

He shook it and finally turned his gaze away from my body. "Hello Renee, It's nice to meet you. I'm Edward Cullen."

"Wow you weren't kidding and his voice is sexy too." My mom whispered a little too loudly in my ear.

"Okay, we're going to go now." I said, blushing furiously. Edward smirked at me while my mom waved goodbye to us from the front door.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do, Bella." She yelled after us and now Edward was shaking with laughter. I rolled my eyes at him and he took my hand in his and kissed it softly. He looked up at me through his lashes, eyes boring into mine.

"You're so fucking beautiful." He said softly, his voice thick with passion. My breath caught in my chest. All I could do was smile back at him.

Edward held my hand in his lap the entire way to Port Angeles. He drove like a total maniac, speeding the entire way, but I distracted myself by staring at him. He wrapped his arm around me, keeping me close to him, when we walked to the nicest restaurant in the tiny town. He asked for a table in the back and didn't hesitate to slide into the booth next to me. I didn't complain. We ate and talked, laughed, joked and basically smiled at each other all night long, in the back corner of the restaurant. We were the only costumers left when the waitress kicked us out at 11:30pm. I didn't fail to notice her thoroughly checking Edward out. I wanted to gouge her eyes out. Edward was intensely amused at how jealous I was.

My sense of unease at what this date would mean for us had completely subsided by the time he parked in my driveway at the end of the night. I was less than thrilled about having to leave him, but we had school the next day and it was already past midnight. I fiddled with my keys at the front door, waiting for him to say, or hopefully do something. I looked up at him when I heard his musical chuckle.

"What's so funny?" I asked, frowning at him.

"You." He smiled. "There are only two keys on that key-chain and you expect me to believe that you can't figure out which one unlocks the door?" _Sarcastic bastard._ I sighed and put the correct key in the door, unlocked it and turned around to tell him goodnight. But I couldn't get any words out because he was leaning into me, his hand against the door. "Did you have a good time tonight?" He asked, his voice husky, his sweet breath pouring into my mouth, his eyes smoldering. He grazed my nose with his while he waited for my answer. When I didn't answer he pulled back slightly to quirk an eyebrow at me.

"Uh huh" was my eloquent response. He smiled. I closed my eyes as he leaned in closer again to me and planted a wet, open-mouthed kiss to the side of my neck not hidden behind my hair.

"Me too." He crooned, in barely a whisper, his lips moving lightly against my neck. Then he turned around quickly, my eyes flew open, and strode back to his car, an air of arrogance to his walk. My skin was blazing where his lips had touched and I was having a tough time breathing. I groaned loudly and he looked over his shoulder at me and gave me a wink, before getting into that perfect car of his and driving away. _So much for this stupid sexy underwear and my silky smooth legs._

Edward's POV:

_She's trying to kill me. _I gripped the steering wheel as hard as I could, my knuckles turning white, as the thought of Bella's dress, or lack thereof, came to the forefront of my thoughts. I had just walked away from the sexiest fucking girl on the planet_, _proud of my personal victory with the evening. I had resisted every hormonal horny instinct that came to me and, _holy shit_ was my mind a perverted motherfucker. Of course, it was all her damn fault. Fuck, why did she have to wear the hottest dress ever made when I was trying to be a god-damn gentleman for once? I had nearly lost control when she slipped on my leather jacket. Fuck, she looked good in it. At least I got her back a bit with that neck kiss trick. _Take that, fucking sexy bitch_. Of course now I was going home to jack the hell off all night to all of my mental images of her. _Well played,_ _fucking sexy cruel tricky bitch_.

I waited impatiently in the parking lot at school the next day for Bella to show up. It sort of freaked me the fuck out how excited I was to see her again. No one had ever had this type of effect on me and I was starting to feel a little emasculated about her hold on me. But every bad thought I had disappeared when I saw her broken down, ugly-ass truck roll into the lot. I watched her as she got out and laughed when she got her bag caught in the door. She had the cutest look of frustration on her face as she walked toward the school and closer to me. She was staring at her feet so I took the opportunity and jumped behind her to cover her eyes with my hands.

"Guess who baby?" I whispered in her ear. She jumped, gasped and pulled my hands away from her face.

"What the fuck are you doing?" She asked, clearly pissed off, with a shocked look on her face.

"Nothing, just saying hi." I told her, a little fucking hurt at her reaction.

"Uh, we're at school, remember?" She asked, in an edgy voice.

"I know that, thank you." I spat at her bitterly. "But I figured after this weekend that that wouldn't matter anymore."

"Well it does matter. Same rules still apply." She said defiantly.

"But why?" I was entirely confused. _Fucking girls and their damn emotions. ___

"It just does, okay?" She shook her head at me. "I'll see you later."

"Bella..." I began to argue before she turned on her heel and stomped away. _What the fuck?_

I knew she had issues with these high school fuckers, but I just assumed that she wouldn't care if people knew about us because I didn't care. I felt fucking mad, hurt, disappointed, and, worst of all, fucking rejected. If I didn't give a shit about my friends knowing we were together, why should she? Sure, people might talk if they actually cared at all who I or Bella was dating, but she meant enough to me to live through that. I guess I didn't mean that much to her. _Well, fuck that shit.___

At lunch, Emmet and Jasper could tell that I was pissed off about something and they tried to get me to talk, but of course I wouldn't. Even when I was mad at her, I'd still do whatever Bella wanted me to.

"Come on, dude. You look like someone fucking punched you in the gut." Emmet offered helplessly. That's kind of how I fucking felt.

"I'm fine guys. My stomach just hurts." I groaned.

"Do you have cramps? Should I get you a Midol?" Jasper sarcastically asked. Alice hit over the back of the head. "Watch it woman. I was just kidding."

She ignored him and turned to me. "What's wrong, Edward? I'm a much better listener than dumb and dumber over here."

"Hey, what did I do?" Emmet whined with a mouth full of my pizza. Alice and I both rolled our eyes at him. I didn't really get why Bella had given up being friends with them. I really did fucking like all of them, they were easy to get along with and there was no major drama in the group. They seemed like reasonable people that would forgive someone easily, even Rosalie, who was bitchy and stuck-up most of the time.

"Thanks, Alice. But seriously, I just don't feel very well." I glanced over my shoulder at Bella, staring down at a god-damn book. "I think I'll just go outside for some fresh air." I fled from the cafeteria, feeling all their concerned gazes on my back. Once I was behind the school, I lit up a cigarette, the first one I'd had in weeks. With Bella around, I hadn't needed them. But now the smoke filled my mouth and nose, soothing me. I had never been angry with Bella before and I hated this fucking uneasy feeling that I had. It was fucking weird to not have her look up at me now.

But I did exactly as she asked. I ignored her completely, even in Biology were we usually discussed the assignment we were working on. But not today. I could feel her eyes on the side of my face, knowing she wanted some sort of response from me, some kind of recognition that I wasn't mad at her for what had happened this morning. But I wasn't going to fucking give in. She asked for it, here it is. Deal with it.

I walked straight to my car when the bell rang and saw Jasper and Emmet waiting by my car with fucking eager grins on their faces.

"What's up guys?" I asked when I got to them.

"We're all going out tonight." Emmet said in an excited voice.

"The girls want to set you up with someone." Jasper added.

"Are you guys fucking crazy? It's Monday. We have school tomorrow."

"Jesus, don't be such a pussy, Eddie." Emmet joked.

"Really, I can see your vagina from here." Jasper said, shoving me. I laughed at them until I saw Bella jump into her truck without so much as a glance my way.

"What do you say, Eddie?" Emmet asked.

"I'll go if you fucking stop calling me Eddie." I shot at Emmet.

"Alright, we're meeting at my house at 7." Jasper said.

"See ya later, Edward." Emmet yelled, emphasizing my name, as they walked away.

"Later guys." I called after them before getting in my car to drive home.

Bella's truck in my driveway was the first thing I saw when I turned onto my street. She was pacing back and forth behind the truck. She was biting her nails and staring at the ground. _Good. Serves her right to be nervous. ___

She was right by my door when I parked and got out. I looked at her briefly before walking toward the front door.

"Edward." She whined. "Talk to me, please."

I turned around to look at her. "Oh, I'm sorry. Am I actually allowed to talk to you now?" She rolled her eyes. "I forgot the rules, is it any time after 3 p.m.?" I was using my best sarcasm voice.

"Can you please just let me explain myself?" She begged.

"How can you be sure we won't be seen together out here?" She sighed at my remark. I walked inside, but left the door open and I heard her close it. I walked upstairs to my room and I felt her behind me all the way. I held the door open for her and she stalked past me; I shut and locked the door behind us. Of course this was the first fucking time Bella had ever been in my room, during our first real fight. _Thanks a lot, fate. _We stared at each other from across the room, both of us with our arms folded over our chests. The silence was excruciating but I wasn't about to break it.

Bella finally spoke. "I'm sorry." I'd never her sound so sad. "You caught me off guard and I've just gotten so use to hiding that I...freaked out. You don't understand how bad school was for me after the summer. I can't do it again. And I don't want you to have to go through it either." She finished sadly.

"What makes you think they even care anymore?" I asked flippantly.

"Maybe they don't, but I'm not ready to take that chance. I'm too use to being invisible. I don't want to be Crazy Bitch Girl that is Somehow Dating New Hot Guy." She said, grimacing at her last words. At that I had to laugh. I heard her join in my amusement and all of a sudden, I wasn't mad at her anymore.

"I guess I can understand. That's not a very flattering title." I scoffed.

"I think yours would probably be worse." She reasoned while taking a few steps closer to me.

"Oh yea, any ideas?" I asked while wrapping my arms around her tiny waist. Her hands began stroking my hair.

"Hmm...New Hot Guy that Lost His Mind and Started Dating Emotional Wreck Bitch Girl Even Though He Could Do a Lot Better." She said with a playful smile.

"That's a little fucking long, don't you think?"

"I'll work on it." She whispered before standing on her toes to kiss me. I tightened my hold on her as she slid her tongue along my lower lip and tangled her hands in my hair. I sucked her bottom lip between mine and moaned as her intoxicating taste filled up my senses. I felt her smile and giggle into my mouth and I pulled back to give her a disapproving look.

"Kind of ruins the mood when you start laughing at me." I told her in a mock angry voice.

"I was just thinking about how fast everything changed. I mean, at first we hated each other...." She began.

"No, I hated you, you did not hate me." I teased.

"You stole my lunch table. I was not thrilled with you." She scolded.

"Christ, you're such a baby." She tried to shove me away but I held onto her tighter and leaned in to kiss her neck before whispering into her ear. "I know what you mean. Just a few days ago, we were only secret friends." I kissed the hollow below her ear and felt her shiver in my arms.

"So, what exactly are we now?" She sounded breathless. I ran my lips up and down her jawbone and back to her ear.

"Secret lovers, according to you." I kissed my way lightly over her delicate cheek bone then placed one soft kiss on my favorite nose in the world.

"Thank you." She sighed.

"For what, Belle?" I asked, resting my lips lightly over hers.

"For being so amazing and understanding when I'm such an over-emotional basket-case." She finally opened her sad eyes and looked into mine. She looked so ashamed. _Do something to get that fucking look out of her eyes._

"Hey, I like that title a lot better." I exclaimed loudly. She rolled her eyes and laughed at me. _That's my Belle._ I had just pressed my lips to hers again when my cell started vibrating in my pocket. I groaned while I stepped back from her just enough to grab my phone out of my pocket.

"Oh, thank god, it was your phone." She said while clasping her hands together in mock prayer. I laughed at her over-acting while I answered the call. I should have checked the damn caller I.D.

"Hello?" I said before pulling my girl closely to me again. I rested my chin on the top of her head while she buried her face into my chest and started kissing it lightly.

"Hey dude, just wanted to let you know that the plans have changed a little." It was Jasper. _Shit._

"Oh, yea, what happened?" I asked trying to feign interest.

"We're just going to Emmet's place instead. His parents are going to some conference overnight. This way's better too cause they'll be plenty of empty bedrooms around." He finished in a suggestive tone.

I hadn't fully taken in what he said because Bella was fucking sucking on neck. And she was doing a god-damn good job. "Yea, I don't think I can go tonight, man." I got out just before Bella sucked my bottom lip into both of hers.

"You fucker. We got you a girl and everything. Alice is going to be seriously pissed off at me if you don't show up." Jasper yelled at me.

I pushed Bella off of me so I could answer him but she just resumed the sucking on my neck. "I'm sorry. Something came up." It wasn't a lie. I pretty fucking hard by that point. "I'll see you tomorrow. Sorry." I hung up quickly before he could say anything else. I dropped the phone to the floor and put my hand on the back of her head to hold it to my neck. "Shit, woman. Are you trying to kill me?" She just giggled and her hot breath on my skin was making me fucking tingle.

"Who was that?" It didn't seem like she actually cared. She was pulling me by the belt loops on my jeans toward my bed.

"Jasper; I was supposed to go out with them all tonight but I think I'd rather stay here." She spun me around and pushed me hard on the chest so I fell back onto the bed.

She jumped on top of me and straddled herself on my upper thighs before lowering herself down to lick my ear. I shuddered. "Good choice." She seductively murmured before blowing on the wet spot on my ear lobe. I turned my head into her neck then, cupping it with my hand, and kissed, licked, sucked, and nibbled greedily. I heard her moan when I reached her collarbones. She ran her hands down my body, unbuttoned my jeans and began pulling them down when I heard the front door open.

"Edward? Where are you?" My father yelled from downstairs.

"Fuck." I growled into Bella's skin. _Fucking, brilliant timing, old man._ Bella sighed angrily before pulling my jeans back over my throbbing erection and climbing off of me. We checked our appearances before begrudgingly walking down the stairs. I put my arm around Bella's shoulders and kissed her temple. Her cheeks were still flaming red. We found my dad in the living room, sitting on the couch and flipping through the channels. My dad's eyes went wide when he saw me with my arm wrapped around Bella.

"Hey, dad. This is Bella." I said, nodding to the beautiful girl standing next to me.


	7. Chapter 7

Dazzled Chapter 7

Bella's POV:

Yea, this isn't an awkward way to meet Edward's father for the first time. It's not like I had been getting ready to take advantage of his son, in his house, a few minutes ago. Oh, wait…

"It's nice to meet you." I flushed, holding out a somewhat sweaty palm for him to shake.

"Well, this is certainly a treat." He greeted politely, standing up swiftly and grasping my hand. "I feel like I already know you, though. You're the only thing Edward ever talks about." He was smiling so broadly at me that I felt the familiar sensation of red fill my face.

"Jesus, dad, why don't you try to embarrass her a little bit more." Edward said quite unhelpfully. If it was possible I would've blushed even redder.

"Oh, I'm sorry Bella. Please excuse me." He said sincerely.

"No, it's okay Dr. Cullen. I'm fine." I said hastily before he could feel too bad.

"Call me Carlisle please we're not formal around here." He gestured to the love seat and Edward dragged me over to it, never taking his arm off my waist, and sat down close to me. He had the goofiest grin on his face and I felt like I'd missed something. The look he was sharing with his father was puzzling to say the least. They were absolutely beaming at each other. "I hope you kids are hungry, I ordered a large pizza for tonight." Carlisle interrupted my musings.

"Mmmm, that sounds good. Can you stay?" Edward asked with the excited look of a kid on Christmas morning. I couldn't fathom why he was so overly joyous about eating pizza with me and his dad.

"Yea, I'd love to stay. Thank you." I said as I curiously looked back and forth between them.

"Great, it should be here soon. In the meantime, I'd like to get to know the young lady that's managed to make my son so happy." I finally realized that Carlisle was looking at me as if he was grateful for something. My confusion only grew as the night went on. Carlisle was one of the most inquisitive men I've ever met. He reminded me of his son in that way. He wanted to know everything about me, which was odd because every time I started talking about something new, he seemed to already know what I was going to say. I was starting to suspect that Edward told his dad a lot more about me than he'd ever implied to me. I should have been flattered, that Edward was so proud (was that the right word?) of me that he told Carlisle everything he knew about me. But there was no room left in me for that emotion because I was absorbed with guilt.

Edward was gushing over me to his father, the one person he could openly talk to about our relationship and I wasn't. I wasn't bragging that I was with Edward to anyone, not even my mother. He was my own little secret and I wanted to keep it close to me. I was too afraid that the perfect balance we'd happened to find with each other would be tainted by any intruder. But he wasn't; he loved the fact that the three of us were eating pizza together on the living room rug. Edward was showing me off to the one person I hadn't forbid him to tell. _God, I don't deserve him._

He kept kissing me too, sweetly on my head, my hand, and my cheeks, which just made the guilt fester more in my stomach. It was so tangible that it was painful. I should have been shouting from the rooftops that I was dating the hottest, smartest, sweetest, funniest guy in all of Washington, or the world for that matter. I had to find a way to make it up to him. I would find some way to make sure that he knew just how thrilled and proud I was to be his. He was certainly pleased to be mine and wasn't afraid to display it. His anger toward my behavior at school finally made perfect sense. I smiled and engaged in polite conversation as best I could the whole evening until Carlisle finally excused himself for the night.

"He liked you." Edward satisfyingly declared when Carlisle had gone up stairs. We were sitting on the living room floor; the sound from the TV was barely audible. "I'm glad you stayed." He said before kissing my neck softly. I sniffed loudly. I tried not too but the tears were about to spill over anyway. _Brace yourself for over-emotional Bella that cries at the drop of a hat._ "What's the matter, baby?" He sounded overly concerned as he tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear and turned my head so that I was looking at him.

I stared into his eyes and there was nothing but concern there. He should have been furious with me. "Bella, you're freaking me out, talk to me please." He put a comforting arm around me and I leaned into him and pressed my forehead against his chest.

"I feel so guilty." I whispered as the tears fell predictably over my cheeks.

"Because, you ate so much pizza?" Edward asked trying to lighten the mood. Now I felt even worse for ruining his good mood.

"Well that too." I laughed shakily. I took a deep breath and sat up to look him straight in the eye. I held his face firmly between my hands. "You know that I'm not ashamed of you, right?" He furrowed his brow at me. "You know that I think you're amazing and that I'm proud to be with you, don't you?" I used as much conviction as my voice would allow.

He stared at me with a befuddled look. "Yea, I know that." He sounded sincere and I sighed in acute relief. "What's this all about?"

"I had no idea you were telling your dad about me." I said quietly as I dropped my hands to my lap and twisted my fingers together.

"Was that not okay?" He asked, suddenly worried.

"No it's fine, it's…it's really flattering. That you wanted him to know all about me." I sobbed and buried my head back into his chest.

"Do you always cry when you're flattered?" He encircled me in his arms and held me closely to him.

"I'll try not to make a habit of it." My voice was shaking. "I'm sorry. I would change everything and tell the entire world about you and me if I could, but I can't. I'm so sorry."

"You know I hate it when you do that. There's nothing to be sorry for. I think you're getting yourself a little too worked up over this whole thing." He was stroking the length of my hair down my back. "As long you want me I don't really give a shit who else knows."

I looked up at him again. "Why are you so amazing?" I asked before he kissed a tear on my cheek.

"It's not that hard when you really want to make someone smile." He smiled at me then, making my breath hitch, and I rolled my eyes before smiling fully back at him. "That's my Belle." His lips caressed mine gently. It wasn't a kiss really, he was just breathing in and out deeply over my lips. It sent shivers up my neck, which he decided to graze next. I was barely coherent as his wet, soft lips trailed patterns up and down my neck. I tilted my head back to give him better access. "You feel better now, don't you?" He whispered in my ear as he licked it lightly. I giggled against the tickling sensation.

"I feel happy. You make me really happy. That never used to be such an accomplishment." I began pulling my fingers through his perfectly messy hair.

"I like making you happy. There's nothing like seeing _you_ smile and knowing that I put it there." He said while tracing the outline of my lips with his fingertip. "You know what else I like?"

"Tell me please." I asked with a sly smile.

"How easy this is, to be with you. It's as natural as breathing to me." His voice sounded so vulnerable and his eyes were intense as he stared deep into mine.

"I feel like I'm finally breathing again, for the first time since summer." I told him honestly before I leaned into him and pressed my lips firmly to his mouth. He tightened his hold on me as he opened his mouth and sucked on my bottom lip gingerly. He really liked my bottom lip. I dragged my tongue lightly over his top lip, making him suck on mine a bit harder.

I repositioned myself in his lap and wrapped my legs around him, using all my muscle strength to pull myself as tightly to him as I could. And I could feel all of him pressed into my center. _Fucking yes._ I tangled my fingers into his hair and he moaned into my mouth before darting his tongue out to meet mine. We were both so desperate to feel close to each other I mentally scolded myself for wasting so much of our alone time on my damn feelings. He pulled away from my mouth, taking a ragged breath before burying his face into my neck and sucking on it for dear life. Now it was my turn to moan. I pulled his hair roughly, pleased when it spurred him on. His actions against my neck became more hurried and intense.

We both were fucking pushing and pulling at each other, willing our bodies to get as much contact as we would allow with his father up stairs. I felt him growing hard underneath me and I shifted my hips against him, begging for more friction. I was getting hopelessly aroused myself. He whimpered into my neck before he leaned back slowly and supported himself with his hands flat against the floor and his arms stretched out behind him.

His eyes were closed and I didn't know what the hell was going on, but I got my answer when he lifted his hips up firmly against me. I sucked in a wild gasp at the new sensation and writhed myself over his straining erection. "Fuck Belle" he said in his husky, sexy voice as he brought himself up to meet me again.

I grinded myself into him roughly over and over and over, keeping my eyes on his face the whole time, while he panted and groaned beneath me. I was resisting every urge to rip his pants off and finally have him inside of me, because Carlisle was still upstairs. I knew it was only a matter of time before this shit had to stop too.

I leaned down to suck on his neck and his breath hitched in my ear. I gripped his hair harder and his movements beneath me sped up quickly. He was stronger than I was. I felt him begin to sit up underneath me and then he had two hands on either side of my face. I stopped abruptly, and opened my eyes to stare into his. They were on fire with the intensity of his arousal and the sheer beauty of them made my heart pound frantically faster. I pressed my lips to his gently and we shared a lingering, light kiss. It was almost embarrassingly tender.

He exhaled grudgingly against my mouth after a minute and I pulled away in confusion.

"I just heard my dad upstairs." He groaned. I couldn't help but laugh at his defeated and angry expression.

"I guess I should probably go home, huh?" I pouted.

"Unfortunately, that's probably the best idea." He stood up and pulled me with him. He walked me outside to my truck and kissed me briefly before I drove away.

Edward's POV:

We needed to be alone. The fucking sexual tension between me and Bella was nearly crippling. Every time I saw her at school, I found myself aching to be closer to her, to feel every part of her pressed firmly against me, to fucking stroke her hair, to kiss her until we both had to gasp for air.

I knew she was getting frustrated too. Our kisses at the end of our afternoons together were becoming more frantic and anxious by the day. She always sighed in defeat every time when I pulled away from her. And I always had to be the one to stop the groping. If we moved at Bella's speed, I would've fucked her in one of our driveways by now. But I was determined to make it better than that, I just needed a plan. And every one I'd come up with so far was fucking hopeless.

I was in Biology, considering the option of a hotel in Port Angeles where no one would see us, when Bella rushed into the room and didn't pause one second after she sat down to take a piece of paper and a pen out of her bag. She wrote something down quickly and passed the note to me while trying to hide a huge fucking smile. I looked down at the paper curiously and my heart started fucking pounding when I read what she wrote.

_Renee's out of town this weekend_ followed by a happy face. Thank fucking god.

I smiled widely before I crumpled up her note and put it in my pocket. It was Thursday which meant I only had to get through one more night of painful throbbing erections before I could finally be with my Belle.

School the next day was fucking slow. Every time I caught Bella's eye, she'd be looking at me longingly, with a small smile on her lips. At lunch, I could see her leg shaking underneath the table.

"I told you guys, I have plans." I said as convincingly as I could.

"With who, we're the only people you fucking know here." Jasper mentioned again.

"My dad wants some fucking bonding time or some shit." I cursed my pitiful lying skills.

"Like you give a shit what your dad thinks. Come on bro, I know for a fact that Angelina Jolie shows her tits in this movie." Emmet informed me enthusiastically.

"Wait what!" Rosalie shrieked.

"What?" Emmet said in his best clueless voice.

"Is that why you didn't invite me and Ali, Emmet?" She asked harshly.

"No…" Emmet mumbled grimly. He'd been caught. _Fucking moron. _Alice promptly smacked Jasper on the back of the head.

He coughed on a huge bite of hamburger. "What. The. Fuck. Shit, Ali. Em picked the fucking movie."

"Dude, shut the fuck up!" Emmet started to complain.

"And you obviously agreed to go!" Alice exclaimed angrily.

"Well, yea, but…" Jasper stuttered. "It's just a god-damn movie." The rest of lunch passed with the four of them in fucking retarded arguments and me laughing and looking at Bella smirking from her table. I wondered if she could hear what they were saying; the girls were yelling so fucking loudly.

"Ali always was unusually loud for someone so tiny." Bella laughed while we ate greasy Chinese food on the couch in her living room as I finished retelling her about the lunch-room drama.

"She's fucking strong too. When she smacked Jas, it sounded god-damn painful." I chuckled while helping myself to another egg roll.

"She always did wear the pants in that relationship." Bella said wistfully. I looked up to see her contemplating her plate of noodles sadly. I put a finger under her chin to lift her gaze up to mine.

"I think they miss you too." I said seriously. I was sick of her pretending that she didn't care about them anymore. It caused me more pain than I'd ever tell her when I saw her by herself at school. She was too good, too kind to be so alone all the time. "Maybe you should try talking to them." I held her chin when she tried to look away.

"No. I told you. I can't." She explained lamely.

"Yes, but you've never given me a good reason why you can't." I was so frustrated with this argument but it always seemed to be where we ended up.

"I told you. You wouldn't understand. It's complicated." She looked down and shook her head.

"I know what happened and it doesn't seem that complicated to me… unless I don't know everything." I finished, ready to gauge her reaction. Her sharp intake of breath is what I'd been afraid of. I had had a fucking nagging feeling that Bella had been keeping something form me. She never wanted to talk about that night and I never pried because I didn't want to upset her. Everything I did somehow revolved around how it would make her feel. I fucking loved it and resented it at the same time.

"You can tell me anything, you know?" I paused to see if she'd look up at me. When she didn't, I continued. "I don't judge and I certainly wouldn't ever fucking judge you. What happened with James?" She looked up at me with anger in her eyes. I was taken aback by her reaction.

"It's none of your business, Edward." She replied acidly.

"Of course it's my fucking business." I growled at her.

"And how do you figure that?" She asked with harsh sarcasm.

"Because I fucking love you." I yelled angrily at her. _Holy fucking shit. _It was the god-honest truth; I was just too fucking emotionally stunted to realize it before this very inappropriate moment. I looked down from her surprised, wide eyes and ran my fingers through my hair. We were both silent for a few minutes while the weight of my words sunk into both of our minds.

"What did you say?" She asked in barely a whisper.

"I think I said 'I fucking love you'." I said flatly, still not looking at her. I was still wrapping my head around the fact. _I love Bella. _It sounded so fucking normal and true and good and right and perfect. But I didn't smile, even though I mostly wanted to wrap her in my arms and say it over and over again before I kissed her for the rest of the night. However, I was horribly aware of the fact that her reaction was less than desirable for someone you just told you loved. She was quiet and that couldn't be a good sign. Of course, that wasn't exactly the most romantic way to tell a girl that you love her.

I looked up to her finally and she was staring at the floor with her brow furrowed up and her mouth hanging open.

"Say something, please." I begged.

"I'm sorry." She said in another painful whisper.

"Don't fucking do that right now." I snapped. She looked into my eyes as hers grew increasingly sad.

"I don't…know…I don't… think I…can…" She stammered uncertainly. She hung her head low in her hands.

"You can't." I choked out. _I love Bella and she doesn't love me. _ It sounded so wrong, even in my head. I couldn't make any fucking sense out of it. "Are you sure?" I needed to hear her say it out loud, or else I'd never believe it.

"I'm so sorry." She whispered to the carpet.

"Stop it!" I almost screamed at her. "I need to hear you say it, out loud." My heart had stopped beating and I was pretty positive that I wasn't breathing, but I was still alive by some miracle while I waited for the words that would either crush me into a thousand pieces or make me the happiest bastard in the world.

But they never came.

I stared at her frozen form, waiting for her to look at me. Instead, I fought the urge to vomit right there in the living room when she silently rose and walked to the front door without so much as a good-bye. I flinched when I heard her close the door. I didn't move until I heard her truck roar away from the house. I had no clue where she was going or if she'd ever come back.

My perfect evening with Bella had transformed into another horrifying nightmare that I couldn't wake myself up from. I knew that I should leave but I also knew that driving a car in the emotional state that I was in right now was a very bad idea. I went to her room and sat down on the bed while the all too familiar and painful tears streaked down my face. I looked around at the room that I'd never been in before. It was so my Belle, a disarrayed mess of books and CD's, clothes and shoes that seemed to be properly strewn about the room, liked she'd done it on purpose. The only truly strange thing was all the picture frames.

They were empty.

OK, that wasn't exactly the strange part but the fact that she had left them up was weird. It's almost like she enjoyed wallowing in her lonely existence. I jumped up from the bed, looking for the one thing that had suddenly sprung to my mind that might have a chance to salvage this night. I surveyed every inch of wall space, flipped through every book on the floor, tore through all the drawers of her desk, shoved every item of clothing out of the way for almost an hour to no avail when I heard her clear her throat from the doorway.

"Edward, I think that you should…" She started.

"Don't bother, I'm leaving." I said sternly as I threw her notebook to the floor with a loud thud.

I was out of her presence and her house before she could offer me any half-assed apology. It wouldn't be enough to fix this night.


	8. Chapter 8

Dazzled Chapter 8

Bella's POV:

I didn't move until I heard his car door slam in the driveway. Then all I could do was fall to my knees. I stared around at my disheveled bedroom, looking for answers that were impossible to find. My belongings were scattered everywhere around the room; he had been looking for something and I had a feeling I knew what the something was. I picked up my pillow that he'd thrown to the floor, reached my hand inside the casing and removed the only picture I kept in my room.

I stared down at the only photo I had ever allowed Edward to take of the two of us. He had been so excited to set up his fancy tripod on the cliff, it really was adorable. In the picture he had his arm around me and a huge genuine smile on his face. I looked disgustingly plain and ordinary next to him, with my meek smile and average looks. I had thought about folding the picture so that I could only see Edward, but I figured that would hurt his feelings. Like that would have even mattered now.

I had ruined everything, in typical, confusing Bella fashion. I was in love with him. Consuming, all-encompassing, life-posessing love with him. Edward was my end all and be all. Nothing in my life would mean anything unless he was there to share it.

So, naturally, I didn't say "I love you too." I didn't deserve any of the love he was willing to give me and I loved him enough to let him go and try to find someone better for him then me.

I ripped the picture in half, leaving only Edward, climbed into my bed, clutching the only piece of evidence that he had once loved me. Then I cried for hours until I finally fell into a restless slumber.

I didn't sleep that weekend. I didn't eat that weekend. I didn't speak one word that weekend. I didn't cry after that first night. I think I numbed myself into a zombie existence.

I had no energy on Monday morning, but inevitably, reality set in and I finally showered and got dressed. I drove to school and kept my eyes firmly away from where I knew he'd be. By lunch, my neck ached from staring at the floor constantly. I sat at my typical table and still faced Edward's lunch table. I was actually dying to look up at him and have him wink at me and smile coyly at me like he used to. I glanced at the table, looking for that mess of bronze hair but didn't see him anywhere. But I did see Alice, Jasper, Rosalie, and Emmet staring over in my direction with bewildered expressions on their faces. I looked back at them wearing my own expression of confusion until Edward appeared in front of me and cleared his voice.

I didn't even have to see his face to know that it was him; I recognized his perfectly smooth chest muscles under his tight shirt.

"Hey baby, I got the fries that you like." Edward said nonchalantly as he plopped down in the chair across from me.

"What?" I thought maybe I had lapsed into some form of insanity, but then the curious looks from my former friends suddenly made perfect sense.

"The cheesy fries, I know you like them I just don't know why." He made a face at the plate of fries and then looked up at me with a convincing smile.

"No, I mean, what are you…why are you sitting over here?" I stammered, and my stupid heart betrayed me and sped up because of his close proximity.

"I wanted to have lunch with my girlfriend." He looked at me intensely and leaned toward me across the table.

"I don't understand." I stated truthfully.

"Well how it works is, we sit here, together and we eat the food that's sitting in front of us." He explained in his cocky, know-it-all tone that I knew too well. "And that's called having lunch." He said the last part like he was talking to a three year old.

"Thank-you for that condescending explanation, what I meant was I thought we had broken up." I was starting to get angry with him.

"What would make you think that?" Edward asked as he put on his best concerned face.

"I don't know, maybe it was the gut-wrenching, soul-crushing fight that we had."

"Yeah, that wasn't a fight Belle." He was shaking his head at me pitifully.

"It wasn't?" I asked incredulously.

"No, my love; for a fight, both people have to be involved and well, you didn't say shit." Edward looked angry now and I dropped my eyes away from his penetrating stare.

"Which is exactly why I thought you wouldn't want to date me anymore," I said quietly to my hands.

"Oh, that's the other thing, we weren't really dating." Edward said harshly. When I looked up at him, he was chewing away merrily on a mouthful of pizza. "Ugh, this cafeteria food sucks compared to yours."

"What do you mean we weren't dating?" I was becoming increasingly annoyed by this conversation.

"I mean exactly that. We were, for lack of a better term, hooking up and I never got to take you on a real date that wasn't in a city 20 miles away, or walk with you at school or hold your fucking hand at lunch. But what's really fucked up is that those things are all I want to do for the rest of my life. I could sit here next to you, with all of these fucking eyes staring at us and be content. So that's exactly what I am going to do." He finished decisively and continued eating.

"Why?" was all I could manage to say.

"Because I love you and I know you love me too and I will wait until you say it." His words were dripping with honesty and I just stared back at him, stunned into an unresponsive state.

"Babe, you gotta eat something, you look like shit." Edward said in a concerned voice.

"Can I ask what brought about this change in you?" I put a fry in my mouth and waited for his response, looking down at my hands again.

"Look at me." He said firmly, but I didn't look up. He reached over and took my chin in his fingers to lift my face to his. It was the first time he'd touched me since our fight and my skin got goose-bumps from his contact. "Please." He sighed. I looked up at him and the pained look on his face was enough to bring fresh tears to my eyes. "I refuse to lose another person that I love when I didn't try everything I could to keep them in my life. So I have to try everything I can think of because I love you, because I can't lose you." His voice was low with the depth of his emotion until he suddenly sat back and returned to his baffling happy mood. "So you have to eat up 'cause it looks like you haven't eaten in days."

I picked up another fry and popped it into my mouth, far too confused and worried to speak at the moment. He was acting very strange and I couldn't decide if his words were in earnest or if he was just trying to get a rise out of me.

"How was your weekend?" He asked with a concerned look in his eyes.

I simply shook my head for a response.

"Mine was boring too. I missed you." He said so softly I wasn't sure I'd heard him correctly. Everyone at Edward's usual lunch table was hard-core staring at us and I flushed a horribly uncomfortable shade of pink at the lot of them. "I couldn't sleep at all either; I've been smoking, it was terrible." I was still staring at his former lunch table and refused to meet his gaze.

"Are you not fucking talking to me or something?" He asked, finally letting his anger weave into his voice.

"I don't know what to say." I said simply. There were things I wanted to say but I couldn't give him the hope. I wouldn't let him love me; he deserved better. If I had to, I'd convince him that I didn't love him.

"You could say what I know is true and then we could move on from this fight." He complained, holding up air quotes when he said fight.

"What if it's not true?" I whispered, finally locking my eyes with his. Edward's eyes were a mix of anger, pain, sadness, and confusion. My eyes instinctively welled up with tears at his obvious pain.

"You're a shitty liar. I know you love me. I just don't why you can't say it." His eyes burned my heart and I swallowed deep before I could answer him.

"Haven't you ever thought that maybe you don't know me as well as you think you do?" I forced as much gumption into my voice as possible but I was fairly sure he could see my eyes glistening with my emotions.

"No… but I am now." He choked out the words and closed his eyes, dropped his head into his hands and sighed painfully. My arms itched to cradle him into my chest but I forced my body to remain still. If I moved at all I'd probably just end up in his lap.

Edward didn't move for three minutes but it felt like days. He looked past me when he finally lifted his face and I saw his eyes rimmed with red. I closed my eyes immediately to stop my traitor tears from spilling over. I heard him rise slowly from his chair and walk away.

I kept my eyes closed until enough time passed that I was sure he'd made it out of the cafeteria. I was met by the confused stares of four pairs of familiar eyes when I finally opened mine. I got up quickly and fled to my car in the parking lot. When I slammed the door I let out a stomach-clenching sob that I couldn't believe was coming from me,

I cried the entire way home and was so relieved to see my mom's car in the driveway that I didn't care to wonder why she was home. I burst through the door and called for her as loud as my tired voice could.

"Baby, I'm in the living room." She called to me, concern clear in her voice. I rushed to the sofa where she was laying down with a book in her hands and flung myself into her lap, like a three year hold throwing a temper tantrum.

"Sweetheart, what's wrong?" She asked soothing as she held me closely and ran her hands up and down my back.

"I screwed up, mommy and now…he's gone." I cried into her shoulder.

"Lost who? Edward?" She asked me, her voice full of sympathy. I just nodded in return. "Honey, you need to tell me what happened before I start to freak out myself."

I took a steadying breath and told her the whole ugly truth about how I'd fucked up the best thing that had ever happened to me.

"I don't understand something." My mom said after forty-five minutes of my tearful confession.

"What?" I sniffed.

"Why didn't you tell him that you love him?" She furrowed her brows at me.

"Because I'm not sure I do." I lied, looking down to my hands.

"Ah, Bella, you are the worst liar in the world." She accused with a smile on her lips. "You are so in love with him."

"How would you know?" I asked a bit too harshly.

"Because you are my daughter and I've known you for a long time…" I rolled my eyes at her. "And I know that I have never seen you quite as happy as you've been since you met him; with the exception of this weekend of course." I nodded my head at her words. "So why didn't you just tell him?" She asked again.

"He deserves better than me." I stated pitifully.

"Now I know that's not true, but shouldn't you let him decide that for himself. Edward seems like a pretty intelligent boy to me." I winced at his name. "Besides, what makes you think that you don't deserve him?"

I couldn't tell her the truth so I went with the next truest argument. "He's perfect and he deserves someone equal to him and I certainly am not."

"Maybe you're perfect to him. Did you ever think of that?" She pressed a kiss to my temple and left me sitting dumbfounded on the couch as she made her way to the kitchen and put a frozen lasagna into the oven for us.

I was even more exhausted the next day at school, having spent another sleepless night tossing and turning in my bed. Only last night's restlessness was not caused by sadness; I was so over-anxious to find Edward and jump into his arms and tell him how much I really truly loved him that I couldn't wait for the sun to rise. My mom had really knocked some sense into me with her infinite wisdom. I would tell him everything, the whole truth about my tragic summer, and put my heart out on the line and see if love could actually overcome all.

I was bouncing by my car staring at the entrance and my heart skipped a beat-or maybe four- when I finally saw his overly-perfect car pull into the lot. I watched him park and was about to run over to him when a fucking anvil landed on my head.

There he was, the only other man who had ever meant something to me, hugging Alice, then Rosalie and clasping hands with Jasper and Emmet. Jasper turned him to Edward and my throat went dry at the sight of him shaking Edward's hand. Soon Edward would know why he was too good for me, because James was back.

Edward's POV:

I was thoroughly surprised and grateful to Jasper and Emmet for how nicely they handled the whole I'm in love with Bella but she's not in love with me fiasco. I had reached a very low point on Monday night after my confrontation with Bella, but luckily had enough sense to call Jasper before I drank the entire bottle of vodka that I'd found in the house. He had come over with Emmet right away and listened to me bitch about Bella all night while we played video games and pigged out on pizza.

"You freaked the shit out of us when you sat over there by her." Emmet said through a mouthful of pizza.

"I knew something was up with you guys. You were always fucking staring at her." Jasper stated wisely.

"Was I that obvious?" I asked somewhat embarrassed.

"I didn't notice anything." Emmet said while frowning at the empty soda can in his hand like he didn't know who had drunk it.

"Yea that's surprising." Jasper rolled his eyes at me. "So what are you gonna do, man?"

"I don't know. I mean, you guys have heard everything. What do you think I should do?" I asked them.

"Beats me; Rosie never hesitated when I told her I loved her." Emmet said unhelpfully.

"Thanks, buddy, that makes me feel a lot better." I spat at Emmet.

"Sorry, I'm just telling you that this is unchartered water for me," He explained. I grimaced at his words.

"If you're convinced that she loves you…" Jasper began.

"I am. I know she is." I interrupted.

"Then just give her some time to come around. Bells can be difficult, but she's totally worth it." Jas finished.

"How would you know?" I asked, suddenly furious about the idea of Jasper ever even so much as kissing Bella.

"Because of how obsessed James was with her. He always talked about how she was the best girlfriend in the entire world." Emmet explained. I frowned even more. I had no idea what James was like but I had a gut feeling that I'd hate the guy no matter what. I didn't have to wait long to find out.

I decided to go with Jasper's plan since I really didn't have any better one at the moment. I'd give Bella space and hope that she'd realize just how miserable life was without me before someone else came along and snatched her up. I was actively not looking at Bella when I felt Jas grabbed my shoulder and point me in the direction of someone I'd never seen before.

"Edward, this is James." Jasper introduced us, excitement and a little worry in his voice. I looked up at the guy in front of me and felt a part of my soul die. He was handsome, every straight guy on earth would admit that. He was muscular and tall and he had an air of confidence and coolness to him that most women went weak at the knees for. So of course he's Bella's ex-boyfriend.

"Nice to meet you, Edward." He said while holding out his hand to me. I gripped it as tightly as I could before claiming that it was nice to meet him too.

"So, what are you doing here?" Jasper asked, standing slightly in front of me and breaking our hand shake.

"Just back for a visit. I missed you guys and my parents went out of town and left me alone for the first time since June so I decided to take advantage of it and pull a jail break." James explained in his nonchalant fashion.

"I didn't think we'd ever see you again after what happened." Alice said to James a little sadly. "Are your parents still being super harsh on you now?"

"Yea, but can you blame them. They thought I'd brought coke into their house. I'm shocked they didn't ship me off to military school." James sniggered.

"Shit, that's what my parents would've done. You got lucky." Emmet said.

"Yea well, it's better than her getting in trouble. Renee would've skinned her alive. Where is that sweet little piece of ass anyway?" James started looking around the parking lot while I felt my face heat up with anger.

"What do you mean 'better than her getting in trouble'?" I asked before I could stop myself.

"I mean if Bella's mom found it was her that brought the coke, she'd be under house arrest or locked up in the basement or sent to live with Charlie or some shit." James said with indifference. He didn't notice the expression on everyone's faces turn from confused to utter shock.

"Oh my fucking god." Rosalie whispered angrily.

Alice looked to Jasper with a horrified expression and Jasper looked as though he'd been hit in the gut. I felt like vomiting myself. Emmet looked merely bemused.

"What are you talking about? Bella didn't bring the coke." Emmet stated like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Of course she did. That's why she stopped talking to us. She felt guilty. What doesn't make sense is why she would call the cops." Rosalie quietly said to Emmet. Jasper and Alice looked deep in thought but I was watching James intently. He didn't look like he was lying.

James didn't appear to be listening and was still searching the parking lot for Bella when he suddenly shrieked with delight and took off at a jog from the group.

"Bella! Hey there gorgeous!" He called out to her before he reached her by her truck. I finally looked over to where he was hugging her.

Bella was five shades paler than she normally was, James was hugging her but her arms were hanging limply at her sides. She looked like she might faint or throw-up at any moment. And she was staring directly at me and I stared back and I knew that what James had said was true because of the look in her eyes.

Every shred of hope was gone. This was it, the reason she didn't want me to love her, the reason she pulled away from me, the thing that she had always had to keep from me. She mouthed I'm sorry at me before her face became hidden when James pulled away from her.

I looked around at my friends and they were all looking at me worriedly.

"I don't get it." I said in no more than a whisper.

"Don't get what?" Alice concernedly asked.

"Why couldn't she tell me that? I mean, it's nothing to be proud of, sure; but did she really think that one thing would stop me from loving her?" I asked, more to myself than the others.

Alice and Rosalie gasped at my choice of words but I ignored them. I was deep in thought. If this was the only thing keeping me and Bella apart then everything would be fine. All I had to do was convince that I didn't care at all about what she used to do, that I loved her anyway because she was my Belle.

I wasn't trying to listen to the others but I could tell that Rosalie and Alice were giving the guys hell for not sharing the juicy gossip about Bella and me.

"I'm sorry, babe but we have bigger things to think about right now." Jasper said, exasperated.

"Yea, like why would she call the police?" Rosalie asked again.

Everyone simply shrugged their shoulders and shook their heads. I looked back to where James and Bella were standing and they were now engaging in a heated argument. Bella looked on the verge of tears now but she was definitely yelling and James was in her face bellowing back at her. If the wind hadn't been so strong, we probably would've heard them.

The bell rang and we watched as Bella shouted one last thing at James then ducked her head and walked into the school without another glance in our direction. James threw his arms up in anger and sauntered out of the parking lot to where his car was parked on the side of the road without looking at us either.

We talked at lunch about all the possibilities of what could've happened at the party for Bella to call the cops. We finally came to the conclusion, after a lot of fucking speculation, that we'd have to just ask her. They decided that I should try first.

Bella had her head down and her hood pulled over when I walked into class. I smiled instinctively; I was still completely in love with her. Sat on my stool and willed her to look at me. When she didn't, I took a deep breath and just got right down to the fucking point.

"So, you used to do coke, huh?" I asked her quietly in her ear.

"You don't have to talk to me." She said pathetically.

"I want to talk to you." I said confidently.

"Maybe that's true, but I don't think you'll like to hear what I have to say." She mumbled, her head still down on the desk.

"I don't know. I just found out that you were a druggie and here I am still wanting to talk to you and…still in love with you." I emphasized the last five words. She groaned in response.

The rest of class passed with me looking over at her and her avoiding my gaze entirely. I couldn't decide if she was embarrassed or if she thought I was insane for still loving her. It was most likely a little of both.

"Are you just never going to fucking talk to me again?" I finally asked, when the bell dismissed us from class.

"I don't get why you want to talk to me." She said, sounding genuinely confused.

"I think I deserve some answers, plus I love you so…"

"Stop saying that." She interrupted.

"No I won't. You can't tell me what to do." I replied like a five year old.

She huffed loudly and stomped her foot childishly. My god, were we mature. "Can't you just forget about me?" She begged.

"Believe me, I wish I could, I've tried. It just doesn't happen. You think I enjoy being in love with someone as nutty as you?" I asked. I was glad the room had emptied before this conversation had begun.

"And why exactly am I nutty?"

"Because you, for some reason, think I'll stop loving you for something that you did before I even knew you. I don't get that. No one gets that. Just because you made one mistake doesn't mean that you have to give up all of your friends and live a hermit's existence forever." I reasoned.

"You're too forgiving." She whispered sadly.

"Maybe you're just too hard on yourself. You made a mistake. No one's perfect."

"You are." She said with the hint of a smile.

"Ah, I've missed that smile." I said to her wistfully. I grabbed her hand and pulled her swiftly to me and she buried her head in my chest. I wrapped my arms around her and breathed in the scent I'd missed so much.

"I'm so sorry, but I was sure that you'd hate me if I told you and I just don't think I could bear that." She said quietly. "At least we can part on good terms."

"What do you mean 'part'?" I asked, terrified of the answer.

"I mean at least now you know and understand why we can't be together." She said as if that thought should be obvious or some shit. I pulled back from her sharply and surveyed her face.

"You're fucking kidding me, right?" I asked, though her face seemed confidently constructed.

"No, I'm not. We can't be together. Your friends hate me now and as soon as what really happened gets around the school, I'll be crucified again. I won't let you go through that." She sounded so confident in her argument that I almost didn't know how to retort. Luckily, I snapped out of that quickly.

"I don't give a shit in hell what these fuck-tards think of me." I angrily snapped at her.

"Yes you do. You love Emmet and Jas, and even Alice and Rose; I can tell. You're better off with them than with me. I'm not good enough for you." Her voice was shaking despite how hard she was trying to be brave.

"Please stop telling me how I fell and let me make my own decisions." I took her face between my hands and forced her to look at me. "I choose you. I choose us and all the shit that may come along with it. You are it for me and nothing you say or do will ever change that." I leaned in to kiss her but she shoved me away and I felt a tear I didn't even know had been forming roll down my cheek.

"You're too young to say things like that. You couldn't possibly know. Just trust me, you deserve better and I won't be the person who holds you back from getting exactly what you should have." She cried before grabbing her bag and running out of the room.

I felt the familiar sensation of loss grip my insides. I gasped against the pain of it. I recoiled from the icy chill that stole over my body at the sight of her running away from me. Just what I need, I thought reprehensibly: Another woman who actively chooses not to love me. I was mockingly reminded of the Patsy Cline song titled 'I Fall to Pieces' at that moment and I couldn't help but wonder how much sorrow one man could take before he literally crumpled away into nothingness.


	9. Chapter 9

**I am so terribly sorry for how long it's been since I updated. This chapter was seriously a pain in the ass for me and I'm still not completely thrilled with it but I had to get it up! If you're not too mad at me, reviews would be lovely!!**

**Sadly I own nothing relating to Twilight except for three posters in my living room. hehe :)**

Bella's POV:

The room spun before my eyes while I unsteadily made my way to the bed. He threw his heavy arm over my shoulders and asked where I'd been before pulling up my shirt. My brain didn't even register the other people in the room. I let him strip me down to my underwear and groggily giggled when he began running his fingers down my stomach. The muffled cries of a girl from the corner of the room were nearly registering in my subconscious, but I couldn't focus enough to figure out what I should do about them.

James was on top of me then, his tongue deep in my mouth, his groin tight against me. I wasn't protesting but I wasn't participating either. I felt suspended, frozen in time, able to think and fell but unable to connect my brain to any other part of my body. I let him remove my bra, I let him pull down my panties, I let the girl cry and cry, wincing every time I heard the vile laugh of the man swallow her sobs.

_Do something, Bella. Tell him to stop!_

"Stopitjames." I mumbled incoherently. He groaned into my mouth.

"Stop." I said clearly. He didn't stop. _Do something, Bella._

I shoved. I kicked. _Again, keep going. Don't stop until he gets off of you. Hurry up, it's taking too long… _

"Fucking bitch." He yelled before slapping me across the face and rolling off of me. The slap helped and I forced all my brain power to focus on my surroundings. It was quiet, too quiet. I sat up and slowly looked around the room, seeing nothing but a blur of colors. Finally, the girl on the floor came into view, hunched and crying on the floor. I wobbled over to her. She looked up at me with swollen red lips, a red, swelling eye and the look of stolen innocence.

"Call 911." She pleaded.

I awoke with a start, the mangled face of the girl burning in my eyes. I was soaked with sweat and tears were running down my face. I was clutching my chest as the sobs came forth and I cried once again for the girl that I should've helped.

It was 3:26 in the morning and I had to get out of this fucking house. I climbed out my window and ran all the way to the house that I was the most comfortable in. I realized how preposterous it was to visit someone at this late hour, but I simply couldn't wait. It felt like I might die if I didn't confess everything soon.

I grabbed a few rocks from the earthen floor and began tossing them at the second floor darkened window. After the seventh one, a shallow light illuminated the room and I smiled weakly at the inhabitant when they looked down at me. We stared at each other for a few moments before they pointed toward the back of the house then walked away from the window. I hurried around the house and flew up the stairs and waited impatiently at the back door until it finally opened.

"Bella, what the hell are you doing here?"

I threw myself onto Alice and hugged her as tightly as I could. I was drowning and she was my life preserver. My only hope was that she was still willing to pull me from the raging sea. "I'm so…sorry." I sobbed onto her tiny shoulder. I felt her skinny arms wrap around my waist and squeeze with more force than I would've guessed was possible.

"What happened, Bella? You're scaring me." She sounded so worried and that made me feel impossibly worse.

"I brought the cocaine to the party." I choked out between whimpers.

"James told us." I shook my head at her response and she backed away slightly to look me in the eyes. "What else happened at that party?" She asked, her own tears starting to well up in her eyes.

"I'm so scared to tell you." I barely whispered and sniffed.

"You can tell me anything, you know that. Here come in and sit down. Take deep breathes." She ordered.

I did as she told me while sitting down at her dining room table. Alice sat next to me, placing a glass of water in front of me, and rubbed my arm comfortingly. I fiddled with my fingers and breathed deeply before I felt like I wouldn't faint anymore.

"Do you remember the three guys and that girl that came with me and James to the party?" I asked without looking at her.

"Um…sorta, weren't they older than us?" She asked.

I nodded my reply. "Well, they were the ones that sold me the coke." I said looking up to her with shameful eyes. She only shifted slightly in her chair. I had expected a finger wave and a 'tsk, tsk'. She nodded and I knew that meant to keep talking. "Well we all took some, in the basement…"

"You locked the door, I remember." She interrupted harshly, as if she had resented being left out.

"James and I started fooling around…" I pressed on. "But I could hear something in the background, like crying and pushing but I was so gone that I didn't even realize…" The sobs were starting again and my breaths became labored. "The crying just kept getting louder, but I couldn't get to her, James was telling me… it was ok and was holding…me down…"

"It's ok." Alice urged, although she had fear in her eyes.

"I tried forever to get him off of me, I kicked and screamed…he finally did but the whole room was spinning. I looked around and then I saw her." I cried and buried my face in my hands. "She was balled up on the floor…there was blood…" I could feel my bottom lip quivering. "She wasn't crying anymore but she was shaking…and the guy, I didn't even know who he was, he just took off and I couldn't find James. But then after I dialed 911…he was suddenly there…" I took another rattling breath. "He grabbed the phone and then he must have hit me or something because everything went black." Alice was breathing almost as heavily as I was. "I woke up in the basement with James right before the cops came. I started freaking out and I told him what had happened and he told me…that I must have hallucinated. I looked around everywhere but the girl was gone and there wasn't any blood anywhere."

I shook my head as the tears continued to fall. "I trusted him so completely. I just took his word, I didn't even know what the side effects of cocaine were but I just believed everything he told me. He acted like he was taking care of me; he even told the cops that the drugs were his. When I asked about the girl, Victoria, he just told me that her boyfriend took her home." The words were pouring out of me now.

"It might be irrational, but I can't help but feel responsible for what happened to her. She ended up killing herself a few weeks later." I finished quickly with another sob at the end. I was visibly shaking in my chair but Alice seemed to have frozen in place. Her mouth was slightly agape and her eyes were wide from the weight of my confession. "If I hadn't been so drugged up, I could've stopped it or tried to help her or something before…" I bawled.

"Bella, why didn't you tell me?" Alice asked tearfully.

"I didn't know what to do. James was gone and I didn't want to drag you all into the whole mess. So I just decided to try and forget about that night altogether and start a new life; but when he showed up here, I couldn't…I had to tell someone." I sighed and put my head down on the table.

"Bella…" Alice said sweetly while starting to rub soothing circles on my back. "This is not your fault. You can't let this destroy the rest of your life."

"Alice, a girl killed herself and I should have helped her." I sobbed.

"Yes, but I don't think you could have, Bella. Victoria took the drugs on her own, right?" She asked. I nodded without lifting my head. "You're a good person, of course you wanted to help her but I remember those guys. They were dangerous, who knows what might have happened to you if you'd gotten any more involved." She said in a pained voice.

"I know, that's what I always tell myself. I'm ready to move on, I am. I just think I need some help." I looked up at her pitifully and she smiled the second best smile in the world at me.

"I'll always be here for you, Bella. You're my sister." She finished, crying a little herself. I hugged her again, letting out a huge sigh.

"Tell me what to do Ali." I pleaded, as we ended our hug.

"Well I have a plan and part of it includes getting Edward back and let me tell you something, do you have some damage control to do." She chided.

"I know I'm so hopeless when it comes to guys." I said while wiping away a few more tears.

"You do love him though, don't you?" She asked with a knowing smile.

"More than anything, but do you think he'll forgive me for everything I've done to him?" I asked her.

"There's only one way to find out." Alice said with her typical upbeat hopefulness.

The next morning, Alice drove me to the police station.

Edward's POV:

Anger. Blinding, crippling, consuming anger is what happens to a man when too many people choose to leave him. I was no longer a broken man. I stitched myself back together and though the scars were only visible to me, they gave a certain type of strength I had never known before. Bella couldn't touch me now.

I had never been an angry person. I had always been depressed which could come off as anger but shit, anger, fucking wanna stab everyone that looks at you the wrong way in the throat anger, that shit's way more intense than depression.

The only good thing was that James had left town again. Jasper wouldn't elaborate but I didn't give a fuck anyway. He just would have been something else for me to ignore, of course that would've been harder if he had started sitting with us at lunch.

I hated the bastard on principle, even if he didn't technically do anything wrong. I seemed to relate my whole catastrophe with Bella to him for some reason. I was also thoroughly fucking jealous that he had had slept with her, but of course I'd never admit that to anyone.

I was smoking and avoiding sleeping again which Carlisle wasn't thrilled about. The fact that he actually noticed for once pissed me the fuck off almost more than anything else.

"Edward? What are you doing?" Carlisle asked after he had slid opened the door, catching me with my seventh cigarette of the day on the back porch. I glanced over my shoulder at him.

"Smoking." I said in my best leave-me-the-fuck-alone voice. The bastard didn't.

"Where is your girlfriend?" He asked with concern evident in his tone.

I shrugged.

"Did you two break up?" He asked.

I shrugged again.

"Well I can tell something's wrong; what is it?" He asked; another fucking question.

"Fuck off." Yeah, I was in full-on prick mode.

Carlisle decided to change tactics from concerned father to worried physician.

"Are you sleeping well?"

Another shrug. In truth: not for more than one hour for the last four nights.

"Edward, if you don't answer me I'm going to make an appointment with Dr. Milner." He threatened.

I snorted this time. Thought I'd mix it up for my own amusement.

"Do you know who Dr. Milner is?" He asked condescendingly. I shook my head a little and flicked my finished cigarette into the wet grass, watching the last embers smolder.

"He's the psychologist in Port Angeles." I was somewhat shocked to hear him say this but didn't let it show on my face. He hadn't threatened me with sending me into therapy since the whole 'bitch mom left me suicide thing' when I didn't talk for two solid months after it happened.

"Do that; see if I give a rat's ass." I snapped, lighting up another cigarette.

"Do you need to go back on your medication?" Carlisle asked with a last ditch effort.

"I need you to fucking mind your own god-damn business. I'm all grown-up now, Daddy. You don't need to worry about fucking fixing me anymore." I growled at him. I could almost feel him give up on me.

Right before he closed the door completely he whispered "I'm sorry about Bella, son."

I balled my fists up at the sound of her name and jerked away from the wall when the door slid shut. After my last meeting with her, which I now referred to as the Last-Fucking-Straw, I had been quite successful with letting the all-consuming rage boiling in my blood drive out any and all thoughts of Bella. This was harder to do when her name was fucking sprung on me out of nowhere. I finished my pack of cigarettes right as the moon began peeking through the clouds and finally headed inside.

I let the freezing cold water run down my back, giving me fucking goose-bumps and making me shiver. I stood under the fan in order to dry off, hoping that by staying cold, I could post-pone the tiredness that was waiting to overcome my senses. I didn't want to dream about her. Sometimes the anger left me in sleep.

Dr. Carlisle wasn't the only one to notice my new demeanor. At school, Rosalie kept throwing me what I assumed were supposed to be comforting smiles. Jasper told me repeatedly all day, every day to "Snap the fuck out of it!" Emmet, as it happened, was the only one's help I actually accepted, eagerly swigging at the flask filled with some sort of alcohol, I didn't really give a shit what type it was, that'd he pass to me in the hall between classes.

Alice on the other hand, seemed to brighten each day that my sullen mood continued to decline into down-right unpleasantness. At some point, I began acting specifically rude to her, trying to get her to fucking yell or scowl or something. She was now like the fucking Energizer bunny on Zoloft. I didn't find it nearly as endearing as Jasper. He was thoroughly enjoying how much her perpetually good mood was ticking me off.

"I bet fucking Jessica doesn't seem like a bad idea now, does it Eddie?" Emmet asked across the lunch table as I took a hearty gulp from his flask. The burning sensation in my throat mirrored my bad temper nicely.

"A pity fuck isn't a bad idea, Em. But maybe I should find someone who I'd never have to see again." I said with a bitter smile. I had been jacking off a lot fucking more now since I'd been so sure that Bella was about to make all my fucking wild fantasies about sex come true. I was a miserable, bitter, lonely, horny bastard. But at least I played the part well.

"Don't brood so much Edward. Your pretty face might get stuck like that." Alice said with a beaming smile.

"What the fuck has you so happy, anyway?" I barked at her. Jasper shot me a reproachful look.

"Nothing really, I guess I'm just an eternal optimist. I still think everything's going to turn out ok." She said lightly with a shrug. I snorted in a disbelieving sort of way. Jasper smiled at her and kicked me in my god-damn shin under the table.

Rubbing my leg, I turned to Emmet and Rosalie with a what-the-fuck kind of look. Rosalie shrugged helplessly and Emmet handed me back the flask. I took another long swallow. I now sat with my back to Bella's table. I felt her fucking eyes on me the entire time. I wanted to scream at her to not fucking look at me.

Biology was a lot of fucking fun for me. Bella had missed a few days of school after the Last-Fucking-Straw and during that time, I had convinced the teacher that I needed to sit up at the front of the classroom. Her first day back at school, her face fell immediately when she saw that I wasn't at her table like always, and I basked in that shit. I felt her eyes boring into the back of my head the entire class. But I never looked at her.

The next day, she tried to give me a note when she walked in the room. The second it fell in front of me I stood, snatched it up, walked to the trash can and dropped it in, still without looking at her.

I didn't answer her insistent phone calls, or listen to her sorry messages. Carlisle bought me a new phone when I shoved my old one that she called at least one an hour under the tire of my car and crushed it into a thousand pieces.

I was pretty proud at what a convincing dick I was being. But other than that, I was pretty un-fucking happy all the fucking time.

My mood did not improve when Alice began to riddle us with questions about prom every day. She never seemed to find my' I'm-not-fucking-going' answers acceptable.

"Oh nonsense, all the seniors are going. What else is there to do on a Saturday night in Forks?" She asked in her up-beat Barbie voice. I kinda wanted to smack her.

"I'm not going to the fucking Forks High Prom stag." I said in my new favorite voice: Drop this subject right the fuck now.

"Then you'll just have to find yourself a date. But when you do ask a girl, don't call it the fucking Forks High Prom." She chuckled. I grimaced.

"Why do you want me to go anyway? I'm just going to be a miserable prick the entire time." I said convincingly.

"Eddie, the only reason to go to prom is to find out where all the good after parties will be." Emmet piped up.

"Stop fucking calling me Eddie!" I said a lot louder than I had intended. I felt a few people turn their eyes to me and, though I have no idea how I knew, Bella gave a sad sigh at my outburst. I closed my eyes and could almost see her sad smile that I was sure was sitting just a few feet behind me. "Sorry." I grunted out when no one spoke for a few moments.

Jasper leaned over to me then and clapped a hand on my shoulder. "I get it man. You're fucking pissed, but if I could just give you a word of advice. You may want to stop trying to piss off the few people who actually talk to you." I nodded and gave the table at large an apologetic look. Alice smiled warmly at me and Emmet passed me the flask with a 'whatever works' sort of smirk.

"So I was thinking we should get a hotel suite for the after-party." Alice chimed in. I had never been so happy to hear her back in planning mode.

I began to try and do my best to act like a fucking normal person for the sake of the wonderful people still sitting by me.


	10. Chapter 10

**I don't own Twilight!**

Bella's POV:

"Alice…" I whined as she shoved another ballerina looking get-up at me. "I said no ruffles."

"It'll flatter your figure and cover up the fact that you have no curves." She said matter-of-factly, waving a dismissive hand to my apparently disappointing figure. I pouted at her.

"It looks like it's going to be itchy." I moaned.

"Bella, what did you and I agree on the other day?" She asked in a voice that would do any first-grade teacher proud. She folded her arms across her chest, lifting an eyebrow at me and tapping her foot impatiently.

"That I make very poor decisions." I dead-panned, rolling my eyes.

"And…"She cocked her head to the side.

"That you could make all my decisions for me until my life gets back on track." I grumbled, hanging my head low.

"That's right!" She sounded ecstatic about the idea. "Now, spit-spot to the dressing room and don't forget your heels. I want to get the full effect before I make the final choice." She proclaimed with a triumphant giggle. I leered at her picked up the four shoe boxes I had been kicking around the department store with my feet and headed to the women's dressing rooms, Alice skipping along in my wake.

The dressing room attendant was not pleased to see us again.

"Back so soon?" She asked in a falsely sweet voice. I opened my mouth to reply but Alice scooted in front of me.

"Yes, she needs to try on a few more things. Also I was wondering if you have this in any other sizes." She flashed a pink shimmery dress in front of her face. "And these shoes here, they would really look better in silver, which I know they make because I saw them in the catalogue." She gestured to the pair I had dangling from one of the dresses' hangers. "Oh, and if you could just hang up the rest of these…" She piled eight or nine dresses into the girl's arms. "That'd be lovely. Thanks!" Alice finished with a charming smile. The girl whipped away from us snarling under her breath. She looked as though she'd like nothing better than to shove one of the silver shoes up Alice's ass. Alice didn't fail to notice. "Jesus, you'd think I'd asked for her first born or something!"

I received a sharp poke in the ribs when I laughed slightly and allowed Alice to usher me into the changing room.

"Let's go, the sooner you get this done, the sooner you get to eat." She bribed as I gave her a pitiful smile.

"I still don't understand how me showing up at prom in a fancy dress is supposed to help me get Edward back." I complained while trying to tug a death trap of straps over my head.

"How many times do I have to explain this, Bella? It's not about just showing up at prom and looking gorgeous. It's about doing it _for Edward._" Alice said in emphasis. "It's about putting yourself out there to get hurt just like he did, taking as big a risk with your feelings as he took with you. Being there for him in a situation where he feels completely alone and showing him that, if he gives you another chance, you'll always be there for him." She finished in a wistfully romantic voice.

"That sounds way too sappy to work on Edward." I pointed out while attempting to stand steadily in the five inch heels I had put on my protesting feet.

"Then you obviously don't know Edward as well you think you do." I threw the doors open and crossed my arms at her.

"Oh, really; care to enlighten me?" I raised my eyebrows at her in disbelief.

"Edward's a romantic." She said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"A romantic, are you serious?" I asked chuckling at her.

"Yes I am. He may never admit it but actions do speak louder than words."

"And what exactly has he done to make you think he's a romantic?" I asked as she began to fiddle with the hem of my dress, frowning disapprovingly at the length.

"Edward took pictures of you. He bragged about you to his father. He taught you how to dance, or at least he tried. He did everything you asked of him. He didn't give up on your relationship when had every right and indication to do just that. He believes in true love." I cocked my eyebrow at her quizzically until she caught my eye and huffed in exasperation. "Fine, don't believe me. We'll see who's right at the prom." She proclaimed before vetoing the dress I was in and pushing me back into the dressing room.

Two hours and five hundred dollars later, Alice decided that I was as prepared for prom as she could hope to get me and begrudgingly headed to the food court with me.

"I doubt I'll find anything in this mall that'll fit into my Zone diet." Alice said shooting repulsive looks at the various greasy eateries.

"Then I'll just get something to go and eat it in the car." I told her, eager to get her away from the rest of the shops in Port Angeles.

"Not in my brand new Porsche, you're not." She said while fixing me with a withering stare.

"Well, I have to eat something. I've never been so exhausted from shopping before." The grumbling in my stomach was becoming painful.

"Amateur." Alice scoffed.

We sat down in the mostly empty food court after I'd gotten myself a delicious piece of cheesy pizza and a large soda. Alice continued to shoot me envious looks over her tofu chicken salad and bottle of water. She hadn't changed at all. Tiny Alice was always so worried that if she let too many calories pass her lips she'd wake up one day with what she referred to as baby-birthing-hips. That was just simply unacceptable.

"So, are you going to tell Edward about what happened in Seattle?" Alice asked with her best attempt at an innocent expression.

"I don't know Al, do you think I should?" I had a feeling I knew what her answer was going to be but I patiently waited as her innocent façade faded into the hyper expression she gets when she has the pleasure to boss someone around.

"I know it's not really any of my business, but I think he might be more forgiving if you offer up the whole truth to him finally. Clean slate and all that shit. Sacrifice all your lies and sins to the one person you love more than anyone in the world."

I laughed at loud to cover up the fact that I whole-heartily agreed with all the corny crap she'd just suggested. She glared at me and we finished eating in a huffy silence. We dashed through the rain to Alice's shiny yellow Porsche and she sped like a bat out of hell toward Forks.

I closed my eyes and pretended that Edward was in the driver's seat. Alice drove at nearly the same speed. I smiled slightly as I remembered the way his hand had closed completely around mine. I could almost smell him, faintly minty, a little smoky, and simply perfect. The only problem was Alice's music. Edward would never let something as foul as Britney Spears to be allowed to play in his car.

"Yoo-hoo, Bella! You still with me? Alice yelled. I jerked my eyes open, my beautiful illusion disappearing far too quickly.

"Yes?" I sighed.

"Are you ok?"

I shrugged.

"Don't give up, Belles." She said, suddenly serious. "Never give up on what you want." I smiled slightly at her.

Blank paper is not my friend. Particularly not at two seventeen in the morning.

**Dear Edward,**

**This is the hardest letter I've ever had to write. I can't begin to tell you haw very sorry I am for everything. Wow, how original is this letter?**

I groaned, crumpling up the paper and throwing it over my shoulder. _Just write what you feel, Bella._

I feel like I'm an absolute moron and no matter what I write to you in this stupid letter, you won't talk to me. I also think you've been acting like a major dick in Bio.

_Oh yeah, that'll get him running back to you._ I ripped that piece of paper up into confetti and tossed the pieces into my trash can. I took a deep, steadying breath before attacking the next sheet of pearly white paper.

**Dear Edward,**

**If you give me a chance to explain my actions, I will do whatever you tell me to in bed.**

_That might actually work, just a tad bit desperate; but then again, it is completely true. Shit, I must be in love… or terribly horny. It's probably a little of both. I can't send him this, what am I thinking. I knew I should have had Alice write this letter. It was her idea after all. For the love of god, focus Bella._

I discarded that sheet of paper and paced up and down my room for a while. I wished I could just call Edward and ask him to talk to me. I knew he would say no though. That's why Alice had suggested putting it all in a letter, hoping his curiosity would get the better of him and he would eventually break down and read it. I didn't have a lot of faith in this plan.

I could not wrap my head around writing down everything that had happened last summer in a letter. I didn't think I'd be able to put it all into words. I also wanted to give him a reason to talk to me again. I had to think of something so intriguing for him to read that he wouldn't be able to resist my offer to explain anything and everything. If he had all the information willingly handed to him, he could take it and disappear.

I couldn't let that happen.

I sat down at my desk again. The bare paper was mocking me. I had to shut it up.

**Dear Edward,**

**How do I love thee, let me count the ways…**

_Beautifully said, but I have a feeling he might not think it's original. _

**Dear Edward,**

**Roses are red,**

**Violets are blue,**

**James is a pathetic kisser compared to you.**

_Probably not the best idea to mention the ex in the please- forgive- me- for- fucking- up letter, even if I am criticizing him. _

**Dear Edward,**

**My life will be meaningless if I never get to run my hands through your perfect hair again.**

_Starting to sound like a stalker…remember Alice's advice, we don't want to scare him away. _

I closed my eyes, searching through my inspiration: golden-green eyes, crooked smile, messy hair, strong hands on my lower back, adorable face when he gets tickled, musical laughter, crushing sarcasm, leather jacket, James Dean walk, mint cream and cigarettes, perfect lips sucking gently on mine…

My hands were shaking as I picked up the pen and wrote the only thing I felt was needed.

**Dear Edward,**

**I do not want to live my life without you.**

**Please, one more chance…**

**Your Belle**

I folded the letter in half and put it in my backpack before curling up into bed and crying myself to sleep.

Edward's POV:

This feels so fucking relieving and wrong at the same time.

I groaned as she thrust up to meet my rock hard cock again. She tugged on my hair too roughly to bring it down to her neck.

"That fucking hurts." I growled at her.

"Sorry." She giggled. Her voice was too fucking girly. "I thought you liked it rough."

"Stop talking." I ordered. It was easier to pretend when she shut her god-damn mouth. I closed my eyes so I couldn't see her tacky bleach-blonde hair or her fucking fake orange tan.

Her lips were too pouty. Her fingers were too short. Her hips were too curvy. Her collarbones were not delicate. Her skin was not silky smooth. Her legs were too long underneath mine. Her boobs were too huge. _Never thought I'd be complaining about that._ Her eyes were not dazzling blue.

She was not Belle.

_Fuck this bitch and quit being such a fucking pussy._

I ripped her bra off and furiously groped her breasts. She began fumbling around with the zipper on my jeans. I lifted my hips up and allowed her to push them and my boxers off of my legs. I brought my head back down to her chest and bit her nipples, not caring whether she was crying out in ecstasy or pain. I reached for her panties blindly and received a sick sort of pleasure at how they were already soaking wet. I pulled her underwear off but moved my hands. _This hook-up is for my pleasure, not hers._

I was about to get up and search for a condom when she flipped me over onto my back and settled herself between my legs, in front of my throbbing cock. She started to stroke it like a fucking pro and that made me feel even worse about myself. Not only was I fooling around with a girl I didn't love, but I was also offering up my best soldier to a fucking slut.

I closed my eyes again when she lowered her head to my dick, desperate to summon up enough brain power to convince myself that it was Bella's mouth on me instead. She worked on me expertly and it felt fucking liberating to not be jacking myself off for the first time in months. I was getting close and she must have known because she moved to position herself above me. I had begun to hope that maybe she'd just let me finish off in her mouth. I didn't want her to think that I actually wanted to fuck her. A part of me just needed too. I was convinced if I could fuck another girl, I could get over Bella. I grabbed her hips in the prospect of flattening her into my mattress when she said it; the one phrase that could and would ruin this whole fucked-up therapy sack session.

"You taste amazing." She whispered sickeningly sweetly in my ear.

My eyes snapped opened and for a split perfect second, I was on a cliff in the late afternoon, straddling the most amazing woman while she said the sexiest fucking thing I'd ever heard.

"What the fuck did you say?" I shouted as the scene cleared and I stared into a pair of vacant gray eyes.

"What?" She asked like the fucking moron she was.

"What the fuck did you say?" I screamed at her again. Her eyes widened in shock and she looked at me like I was a god-damn mental patient.

"What? You taste amazing? What's wrong with that?" She asked in that horrible high voice.

"Get off of me." I whispered as my chest tightened and tears stung the back of my eyes.

"Are you serious? What's wrong with you?" She asked, scrunching up her bitchy face.

"I said get the fuck off of me." I bellowed at her, forcefully throwing her off of me and sitting up on the edge of the bed.

"What the fuck? Are you gay or something?"

"Get the fuck out of my room." I grumbled before leaning my head on my knees. _I will not cry in front of this whore._

"Whatever, it's your loss." She snarled. She got dressed, mumbling under her breath the entire time. I didn't say anything as she left my room with an angry huff. I sat perfectly still until I heard my front door close. Then I got up, put on my bathrobe and walked downstairs, still fucking hard. I locked the front door before going to the liquor cabinet in the kitchen.

Where a pity fuck wouldn't work, alcohol certainly would.

Carlisle was out of town, luckily enough. I had been surprised and relieved that he hadn't hired a fucking babysitter to watch me. I shuffled over to the wet bar and grabbed the first bottle my hand touched, not even bothering to read what it was before grabbing a glass and filling in with ice. My vision was blurry and my hands were shaking as I filled the glass to the rim. I drained it in one gulp and without a second thought, refilled the glass again…

Fill, gulp, repeat…

Thirty minutes later I was feeling numb, at least. I was suddenly gripped with a desperate need to shower. I hated the thought of having that slut be the last thing to touch my body. I took the almost-empty bottle upstairs with me.

I turned the water as hot as I could stand it and feverishly scrubbed my skin. I swallowed liberally from the bottle until I could barely keep my balance. I clambered out of the bathroom and collapsed face first onto my bed.

Something was poking me painfully in the side of the ribs.

"Eddie!" Someone was calling me in an annoying sing-song voice.

"Fuck off." I mumbled groggily. I felt like my head might explode if I moved at all.

"Get the fuck up man." Someone grabbed my shoulder roughly and I wished I could vomit on them.

"Let me die." I groaned.

"Fuck man, Jessica must have been one hell of a lay." I recognized Jasper's voice.

"Never mention that again." I said as I gingerly sat up in bed, realizing I was naked and wrapping the bathrobe around me tightly.

"Why? What happened?" He asked. Jasper was gazing at me intently from his leisurely stance by the doorway.

"I don't want to talk about it." I said in a very fucking final kind of tone.

"We have to get to school anyway." Jasper said in a way that I knew meant he wasn't going to drop this subject that easily.

"I'm not going." I said firmly. He laughed at me condescendingly.

"Yea you are. We have that fucking Calculus test today."

"Shit, I completely forgot." Frustrated, I ran my hands through my hair.

"Did you drink this whole bottle?" Jasper asked, nudging the empty Jack Daniels bottle with his foot.

"Pretty much." He shook his head pitifully at me. "Just give me five minutes." I said before he could say anything too judgmental.

It's a damn good thing Jasper had come to pick me up. I was barely conscious in the car and was even having difficulty walking steadily in the hallways. I could not make out clear shapes three feet in front of me. Jasper was keeping a close eye on me, occasionally pulling me out of the way of innocent passersby.

He stopped in front of a vending machine and was getting me some crackers and a soda. I stood waiting for him swaying slightly on the spot when someone small and warm collided with the side of my ribs. I threw out my arms instinctively and caught hold of them before they could fall. Then my hand was plunged into a sea of soft brown curls.

I wrapped my arm tighter around her narrow waist when she continued to stumble and her hair bounced gently over her shoulders, the coconut-smell breaking through my alcoholic daze. We steadied ourselves against each other and when Bella was finally firmly on her feet, she looked up at me.

Our eyes locked. Her breathing hitched. My arms tightened around her of their own accord. I could feel her heart pounding. I couldn't speak.

I felt so…right. _Please don't look away, Bella._

"I'm sorry." She whispered. "It was an accident."

"It's ok. I know how klutzy you can be." I said in a raspy voice.

"Yea, right." She laughed lightly, sending good vibrations through my body.

"What's going on?" Jasper's shocked voice broke through our intimate moment.

I almost whimpered when Bella moved her dazzling blue eyes from mine to look at Jasper. I followed her eyes and saw Jasper standing a few feet away, completely bewildered.

"Nothing." Bella gasped hastily. She moved slightly backward from me and I dropped my arms in a defeated sort of way. I'm pretty sure I saw her heave an unhappy sigh.

No one else in the hallway seemed to notice what was going on, not even, thank fucking god, Jessica who was standing a few feet away from Jasper.

"Come on, Edward. Let's go." Jasper said, pulling on my jacket. I gave Bella one brief longing look before allowing Jasper to drag me away from Bella.

Bella's POV:

_I can't believe that actually worked. Alice is a freaking genius. Edward didn't even see her slip that letter into his backpack. I suppose it would have been too obvious if I had known that I was going to be the distraction. Now all I could do was wait…_

**Reviews make Edward hot for Bella!**


	11. Chapter 11

Bella's POV:

"What are you going to do?" I asked when Alice grabbed the letter out of my hand.

"I'm going to ask Jazz to give it to him. He'll read it if he thinks it's from Jasper." She said confidently.

"That won't work. He's going to recognize my handwriting." I pointed to the outside of the envelope.

"Oh, quit being so paranoid. He'll know who it's from when he reads 'Love, Bella'." She said with a sigh. I glanced around the hallway nervously and spotted Jasper and Edward walking down the hallway.

"Quick, put that away!" I said nervously.

"Wait, I've got a better idea." Alice said in her evil plan voice.

"Wha…ouch!" She shoved me hard in the shoulder and I stumbled backward, predictably.

Then it happened. Two strong arms wrapped around my body while my head was filled with the perfect combination of mint and cigarettes. My blood boiled in my ears while I said something but I was far too distracted to know what.

It all ended too soon when Jasper started pulling him away, down the hall.

Alice winked at me and gave me a thumbs-up before heading off to her first class.

I was hardly aware of what was going on around me. My body was humming from its recent Edward-contact high. I was jittery all day, especially at lunch, where I got to pass the time staring at the back of his head. Alice gave me the subtlest of winks when I caught her eye and I gave her a nervous smile back.

Edward didn't seem any different than he had this morning. He still looked sullen and dejected. The only difference was that he was shooting furious looks at Jasper specifically, rather than at everyone near him. I decided that there wasn't any chance he had read my letter yet. His eyes were still rather glassy and his backpack lay forgotten on the floor at his feet. I couldn't stop myself from thinking that if he had already read my letter his reaction was not what I had been hoping for. The irrational and romantic part of my brain expected him to run to me and kiss me desperately once he read it. Unfortunately, the somewhat realistic part of my mind, the part that spoke in Alice's voice, told me not to expect him to be so easily forgiving or forgetful.

I won't pretend that wasn't a crushing blow when I walked into Biology and saw Edward sitting at his table in the front. He looked up at me when I walked pass and I felt my heart skip a beat. His eyes were not harsh neither was the smile on his face. The first time he'd sat there, he'd smiled at me in an evil, victorious way. This time, his expression was kind, even sweet. I returned it shyly before shuffling past him to alone at the back of the room. Edward reached into his backpack and took out his book, then let it fall to the floor again. I saw the envelop sticking out from the side and saw that it was still sealed.

_Just be patient…_

Edward's POV:

Lunch was fucking weird. I was glaring at Jasper. Jasper was staring at Alice with his eyebrows furrowed. Emmet was trying to get me to look at him. I knew he was eager to know about my night with Jessica. Rosalie was looking confusedly from Jasper to Alice. And Alice seemed completely oblivious to everything going on around her.

She sat between me and Jasper, munching merrily on her French fries, a perfectly content smile on her face.

"Did I miss something?" Emmet finally asked after twenty minutes of tense silence.

"That's usually a safe assumption." Jasper said without taking his eyes off Alice.

"What the hell is on going with you two? Did you have a fight?" Rosalie asked Jasper and Alice.

"I don't think so. Did we, Jazz?" Alice asked, flashing Jasper a charming, innocent look.

"Not yet." Jasper answered with a scowl. Alice let out a nervous little chuckle.

"Well, what the hell's up your ass?" Emmet shot at me.

"Um…hangover." I mumbled. I saw Jasper roll his eyes.

"Things didn't go well with Jessica did they?" Emmet asked. I glared at him.

"Jessica?" Alice spluttered around her mouth full of French fries.

"Momentary lapse in judgment." I said acidly.

"Eww, Edward. I don't even want to sit with you anymore." Rosalie said disgustedly.

"Relax, we didn't sleep together." I explained. Alice let out a huge relieved sigh. Jasper and I eyed her skeptically.

"What?" She asked defensively once she could no longer pretend that we weren't staring at her.

"Why do you care who Edward sleeps with?" Jasper asked her before I could even open my mouth.

"I don't." She answered with a weird head shake. She seemed somewhat nervous for no apparent reason.

"Uh, huh…" Jasper said in his creepy all-knowing tone. He could read Alice like a fucking open book and I could tell that the rest of us had missed the memo of what the fuck was going on.

Alice turned her head and met Jasper's calculating gaze with her I'm-not-saying-anything face. It was like they were having an entire conversation without saying anything. Emmet, Rosalie, and I watched this silent exchange until the private manner of it overwhelmed the rest of us and we invented lame excuses to leave the cafeteria long before the bell actually rang. I left Rosalie and Emmet making out against the hallway wall to go smoke before class.

I couldn't help myself when Bella walked into class. I looked up and half-smiled at her. Big fucking mistake; I was acutely aware of her eyes boring into the back of my head for the rest of class. I was getting pretty fucking uncomfortable about it too. I walked quickly out of the room at the end of class, eager to get home and away from everyone and their fucking prying eyes.

I had to face the fact that I hadn't made any fucking progress with my get-over-Bella plan. The brief contact we'd had at school left me thirsty for more but I was still angry with her. I'd have to hold onto that and not let the insatiable longing for her get the better of me.

Apparently fate had other fucking ideas.

"I do not want to live my life without you. Please, one more chance, Bella." I looked up from the letter at Jasper in disbelief. He didn't say anything. "What the fuck is that suppose to mean?" I bellowed at him.

"I think it means she doesn't want to live with you and she wants you to give her another chance." He said dully.

"Thanks a whole fuck load for that but believe it or not, I figured that much out for myself." I said sharply.

"Easy, tiger." He said while holding up his hands in mock defense. "Maybe you should talk to her."

"Talk to her, after all that shit she did to me?" I asked incredulously.

"Well you obviously want to otherwise you wouldn't give a flying fuck about that letter." Jasper said patiently. I growled. "Listen, Eddie." He continued, leaning back on the couch and rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm not supposed to tell you but sometimes it's better if I don't do everything Alice tells me."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"I know what happened at the party. I know what Bella isn't telling you." He stated calmly.

"How do you know? Did Bella tell you?" I asked fucking confused.

"No. Bella told Alice. I bugged the shit out of Alice until she finally folded and told me everything." He said with a rather satisfied grin.

"They're talking again?"

"Just recently; Bella asked Alice for help with you." Jasper said with a roll of his eyes. "Girl shit, you know."

I snorted while finally sitting in a chair across from Jasper and leaning forward. "So what do you know that I don't."

I heard Bella stop walking a few feet behind me. She shifted her weight uncomfortably, evidently waiting for me to speak first. I continued to stare out at the sun setting behind the mountains.

"It wasn't your fault." I finally said quietly.

"I can't believe Alice told you." Bella said angrily after a moment.

"Jasper told me and I'm glad he did." I said evenly.

"I wanted to tell you everything, to explain…"

"I think I understand. It's not that complicated." I interrupted. "It was good of you to go to her parents. That must have been hard."

"I should have done it a long time ago." She said softly.

"The point is you did it. It was a good thing to do."

"I just wanted them to know the truth of what had happened. Apparently she never told them about the party or the drugs before she killed…" She stopped short with a heavy breath. "I'm sorry, Edward. I shouldn't be talking about…"

"It's fine." I interrupted again, a bit forcefully. "I didn't ask you out here to talk about that, anyway."

"You didn't?" She asked.

"No. I want to talk about that fucking letter." My tone was harsher than I had wanted.

"I had a feeling you might." She said with a heavy sigh.

"Yeah, well it left me with some unanswered questions."

"Fire away. I'll answer anything." She said.

"Why don't you want to live your life without me?" I knew what she would say but I had to hear it before I could ever believe it.

"Will you look at me when I say this." She begged.

I turned around slowly and lifted my eyes to her face and was surprised to find that she wasn't fucking crying. Her eyes were determined and she held my gaze steadily.

"I love you. That being said, I could probably move on and get over you some day. Even be decently happy with someone else, but I don't even want to try. You are the only man I want to kiss, and make love to and wake up next to every single day for the rest of my life. Nothing else will ever compare to the way I feel when I'm with you so there's no point in looking anywhere else. You are it for me. That's what I meant in the letter." She said this with no hesitation, her words dripping with conviction.

I swallowed heavily before I could speak again. "Give me one good reason why I should believe anything that comes out of your fucking mouth."

She shrugged. "You shouldn't. I have lied to you and hurt you and now the only thing I can hope for is that some of that faith that you had in my love for you is still there. You were convinced I loved you even though I never said it and you couldn't have been more right. So I'll just keep showing you how much I love you until I earn that trust back; if you'll let me, of course." She finished and her eyes finally betrayed how hard this was for her, but she managed to hold back her tears.

"You want me to have faith in you again when you had none in me?" I asked incredulously, quirking my eyebrow at her.

"Yes?" She answered in an uncertain voice. I snorted in disbelief. "I'm prepared to gravel."

"Hmm, I don't care much for graveling." I mused.

"Then, what can I do?"

"I don't know, Bella. Love isn't something easy to prove." I kicked the rocks on the ground with my feet, turning as I went. I could see her wheels turning, conjuring up a scheme. Then she started taking off her shoes. "What are you doing?" I asked as she began to unbutton her shirt.

"A big gesture. A leap of faith." Bella said with her all too familiar, dazzling smile.

"I really don't think this relationship can be salvaged just with sexual favors." I said seriously. She threw her left shoe at me.

"I just don't want my clothes to get wet."

"Wet?" She nodded her head toward the edge of the cliff. "Are you insane?"

"Maybe, but are you really going to deny the woman that will willingly jump off the side of a cliff into sixty degree water just to prove her love for you?" She asked, giggling at the shocked look on my face.

"How the fuck does you jumping off a cliff prove anything?" I asked as she stripped off her jeans, leaving her in nothing but her sexy black panties and bra.

"It's symbolic, it's romantic." She said as she began to walk toward me.

"It's stupid and dangerous." I countered.

"So is love sometimes. Edward Cullen," She began, reaching out and holding my hands firmly in her much smaller ones, "I love you and I am going to leap off of this cliff with the faith that you'll follow me because you still love me too."

"Bella, don't…" She dropped my hands and darted around me before I could say another word. "Bella!" I screamed as she reached the edge and flung her-self into the open air. I rushed to the side, just in time to see her crash and submerge into the chilly water below. She made a delicate little splash and I held my breath until I saw her head bob to the surface.

Bella's POV:

Ok, that may have been a bit too impulsive but damn if it didn't feel amazing. The freedom of falling, the wind whipping my hair up and out of my face; letting go of all past mistakes and not thinking for once. Even the icy water was a relief, because it was different.

It pierced my skin with the pain of a thousand needle pricks. It sucked the air out of my lungs and numbed my brain. I at last reached the surface and gulped desperately at the savior oxygen, before swimming to the edge and looking up into the face of my angel.

"You're out of your fucking mind." The angel was mad. Edward handed me my clothes and after I shakily pulled them on, he wrapped his arms around me and moved me up a trail I'd never noticed before and back to the highway.

"That felt wonderful." I said, breathless with exertion, leaning gratefully into Edward's warmth.

"Fuck, Bella." Edward extracted one arm from around me and opened his car, rummaged around in the back before pulling out a sweatshirt and thrusting it into my arms. I pulled it over my head and the next moment Edward's arms were holding me again. He kissed my dripping wet hair. I buried my head into his chest. "I hope you don't have hypothermia for prom." He whispered.


	12. Chapter 12

**This is the last chapter, sorry but there is a lemon for you all!! Hope you enjoy, it is my first one so please be kind! I love any and all reviews!!**

**I don't own Twilight!! :(**

Bella's POV:

"Rose, I have to wear a bra!" I exclaimed for what felt like the thousandth time.

"But you can see it under the silk. It looks weird. Take it off." Rosalie said, snapping her fingers at me.

"What if it's really cold in there and I…get, you know…poppers?" I emphasized the last word by sticking my pointer fingers straight out in front of my boobs. Rosalie held out a roll of duct tape in response.

_Oh, hell no. _"Alice!" I screamed, batting away Rosalie's hand when she tried to get at my bra hook.

"What?" Alice yelled from the bathroom down the hall.

"Rose is trying to take off my bra!" I screamed back, clutching my chest protectively.

"Good, you don't want to be fiddling with it all night." Alice said dispassionately.

"Are you serious?" I whined.

Alice threw open the door with a sharp whack. "Bella, you can either do this the easy way, or we'll do it for you the hard way." The sound of Rosalie pulling on the duct tape made me jump. Alice folded her arms and tapped her foot impatiently until I sighed in defeat.

An hour later, feeling sufficiently unsupported, I allowed Alice to apply a pound of hairspray to the curls falling down my back.

"Perfect!" She declared. "Now try not to sweat too much or your hair is going to lose all of this wonderful body that was only accomplished after forty-five minutes of tedious curling done by yours truly."

"No problem, Alice, I'll just turn off my sweat glands." I stood up and swayed slightly on the plush carpet of Alice's room in my four-inch heels. "You know, it won't matter how much I'm sweating if I fall and break my neck before we even get there."

"You look fabulous, Bells." Alice alleged and I smiled at her.

"I just hope Edward doesn't molest you in the back of the limo." Rosalie said from her perch on Alice's bed.

Rosalie had been tougher in forgiving me than Alice. Alice's natural nurturing side took over, whereas Rosalie's unrelenting tendency to dig her heels in held firm in the face of my confession. Not until the excitement associated with the prospect of the perfect prom night fell upon us did she at last return to the old, sarcastically brutal Rosie that I knew and loved.

"That doesn't sound so bad to me." I said with a devilish smile at both of them.

"So it's true then?" Alice asked, instead of making the gag face I had been provoking for.

"What's true?" I asked while Rosalie threw her head back in senseless laughter.

"That you and Edward have yet to consummate your passion for each other." I gaped at Alice's words, hanging in the air between the three of us like a challenge. The two of them ogled at me with shameless curiosity.

"No way are we talking about this right now. We are three beautiful, mature women who are dressed to the nines for the approaching evening. It is completely inappropriate to speak of such smutty things right now." I told them firmly with a decisive nod.

"All that means is that you have nothing exciting to tell us." Rosalie was officially more interested in her manicure. Mission accomplished.

"I bet you'll have something to tell us tomorrow." Alice said, winking at me wickedly.

"Well I won't if we don't leave soon. I bet Emmet's already asleep downstairs."

"Please, I'm sure he's already plastered and couldn't care less if we ever make it to prom." Rosalie said while she gathered up the red dress with the plunging neck-line that was doing a remarkable job of making me and Alice feel insignificant to stand next to her.

"Some things never change." I sympathized to Alice when she gave herself a pitying inspection after Rosalie stood to her full height and positively towered over us.

"What?" Rosalie fathomed, swinging her silky blonde tresses over her shoulder.

"You look hot." I told her flatly.

"Thanks, I think we'll all turn heads tonight."

"Let's go get our guys before they give themselves alcohol poisoning." Alice said, leading the way to the door and I fell into step behind Rosalie.

We made our way to the staircase, in horrible debutante, coming-out fashion. I felt somewhat ridiculous in the dress Alice had approved of, but I had to admit she had done well. The black satin didn't wash me out, the neck-line gave an impressive allusion of cleavage, and the silt that reached up to my mid-thigh made my legs look miles long. My make-up was understated, and yet my eyes were smoky, my lips pouty and skin glowing. I was the image of Meredith Grey a la second season finale.

Not that any of this mattered much; I didn't need make-up or an overly designed dress for Edward to think I looked beautiful. And after all, that night was all for Edward's benefit. I would have been happy to spend that Saturday night curled up on the couch with Edward and a bowl of popcorn for the NCIS marathon. But after all I had put him through a night of dancing in painful heels that squeezed my toes together was hardly a lot for him to ask of me.

Hence the embarrassing parade of our assets to the gentlemen below. Amid the catcalls and whistles, I was met with glowing awe from Edward's eyes. I slinked down the stairs, made vague references to how handsome Jasper and Emmet looked in their tuxes, and finally reached Edward, leaning languidly against the mantle of the glowing fireplace. He looked better than James Bond, black vest clad over traditional white shirt, no tie and dirty old converse shoes; the most conventional he was willing to look at the grandest of high school traditions. I twirled slowly around in front of him, silently asking for approval and hopefully bountiful compliments.

"Well, what do you think?" I asked when he did nothing but smile at me.

"Come here." He said in the softest whisper, beckoning me forward with his finger. I inched closer and he put a very firm grip on my waist. "You're sexy." He slurred. The smell of vodka on his breath was overwhelming.

"You're drunk." I said in mock annoyance.

"Nope." He shook his head wobbly from side to side and plastered a lazy grin on his face. All I could do was laugh; he looked cute all sluggish.

"Let's go before you all pass out." I said, tugging him to the front door. Alice and Rosalie were already dragging their boyfriends out to the limo that was waiting. We piled them inside, where more drinking soon began to commence.

By the time we were dropped off in front of the Rose, the finest hotel in all of Forks, we were all perfectly smashed. No one was throwing up and we were all warm and fuzzy around the edges, which could only help my dancing skills.

"I can't believe how well you're doing." Edward drawled in my ear during a particularly gooey slow-dance. His hands had found a permanent resting place on my very lower back, my fingers folded themselves in and out of his tresses and we gazed dreamily into each other's eyes. Yes, we had become that couple; the one everyone hates based on the 'they're-cuter-than-everyone-else-on-the-planet' principle. Judging from the many awed stares and whisperings we were attracting, we would most certainly rank among Fork's hottest in the after-prom debriefings.

"I think that last tequila shooter actually improved my footwork." I said while nearly stumbling over Edward's shoe.

"That doesn't really make sense, but you look so pleased with yourself that I won't press the issue." He said before dipping his mouth to my neck.

Edward was nothing but smiles and kisses that night. Whenever we weren't speaking, his lips ended up somewhere on my bare skin. I kept silently yearning to end the night early and head upstairs to the extremely empty suite for two that waited patiently for us. But I wouldn't go until Edward was ready; if he wanted to dance with me until my toes were black, blue, and protesting for amputation I would certainly oblige.

We watched in dutiful pride as Emmet and Rosalie were crowned Prom King and Queen. Rose appeared merely annoyed by all the bright lights of the stage while Emmet thrived in front of a live and admiring audience. He was, to the immense disapproval of every student, removed forcibly from the stage after mooning the clump of teachers gathered off to the side. He grumbled about no one in this town having a decent sense of humor, spiked the punch, then threw Rose over his shoulder and carried her up the stairs in pursuit of their own private room. Alice and Jasper seemed eager to follow their lead and I wholeheartedly agreed in the direction the night was pursuing. We parted ways at the elevator, vowing to see everyone in the morning for the complimentary free breakfast the hotel offered. Emmet seemed more thrilled about that than being crowned King.

Edward and I walked leisurely to our room, hand in hand, cheap party favor bags in tow. The anticipation of what would surely transpire behind the rapidly approaching soon-to-be closed doors had me reeling for a moment. All declarations of love had been made, all hurtful actions, statements apologized for and forgiven. One thing remained unresolved; sexual chemistry we certainly had, but the actual physical act was something else entirely.

After the cliff-jumping-incident, we had spent countless, sometimes most unpleasing, hours delving into each other's past. Neither of us were strangers to sex, which I was totally cool with; I was more worried about the unavoidable comparison of sex with me verses sex with sexy models from L.A., the land of the beautiful. I had never been one for stereotypes, but I'd seen enough magazines to know that I didn't want to compete against anyone that came from the pages of Vogue. Edward had told me, and been decent enough to not look pleased with himself, that two of his previous sexual partners had in fact been models, not those tacky ones that do ads for JC Penny either; real models with agents and runway shows and portfolios and high cheekbones. I wasn't overly thrilled by that information, but hadn't been shocked by it either. I was well aware of how desired my boyfriend was by other women.

I knew sex was supposed to be different when love was involved and Edward had convinced me thoroughly that he had not been in love with anyone before me. Never the less, I still wanted to be good in the sack and finally, the test was upon me.

When the weak morning light seeped into the room and I looked up into Edward's sleepy bedroom eyes and his elated smile, I silently gave myself an A++ for the night's performance.

Edward's POV:

The room basically begged for sex. The huge silk-covered bed beckoned us further inside, promising to provide support for all of the erotic situations that were running rampant in my extremely horny brain. There were candles, of course, and the roses and champagne that I had requested. Bella gave a giggle and made a beeline for the champagne.

"You certainly know how to treat your lady friends." She filled her glass to the top and turned to me. "Have a drink with me." It wasn't a request. I moved toward her and took the glass that she had filled for me.

"I wouldn't exactly call you a friend, Belle." I drained my glass in one gulp and she sipped on hers, holding it delicately between her slender fingers.

"What would you call me?" Her eyes were smoldering as she licked her lips.

"Love of my life." I said with my best impish grin.

"Hmm, good answer." She bit her lip.

"Yeah…?"

"Yes." She nodded.

"I have something for you." I set my drink down and put my hands in my pockets.

"Don't you think the room and…you…are enough?" She asked, smirking.

"Hardly." I pulled out a velvet box. Her eyes popped and mouth fell slack.

"If you propose to me at the Forks high school prom, I'll say no." She warned me harshly and set down her glass.

"Just fucking open it." I ordered playfully.

"Aww, that's so romantic." She deadpanned then took the box from me and when she opened it, her eyes popped again. "It's beautiful." She whispered breathily.

"See that's my birthstone and your birthstone." I explained while pointing out first the diamond stones that sat on either side of the square-cut emerald on a delicate white-gold band. "But don't be concerned, I'm not proposing." I said with a wink.

"I love it." She professed as I slipped it on the ring finger of her right hand. "Did you have this made?"

"Yeah, but uh…it's no big deal." She gazed at the ring adoringly before looking up at me.

"You didn't have to do this. You were already going to get laid." She pulled me toward her and started to unbutton my vest.

"I just wanted to cover my bases in case it wasn't a slam dunk." I pushed her hair over her shoulder.

"No sports references before sex." She threw the vest to the floor carelessly.

"Sorry, won't happen again." She kissed me, tugging gently on the buttons of my shirt.

I ran my hands down her back and slipped one under the fabric of her dress. I gave a mental shout-out of thanks to Alice and Rosalie when I discovered that she was in fact, bra-less. I slipped the straps off of her shoulders and the dress fell like water to the floor. I led her to the bed and she followed eagerly, laying down first before I discarded my shirt to the floor with the vest, crawled over her and kissed her again. The luscious taste of her skin spurred me on as I licked and sucked fervently over her neck, collarbones, breasts…

She gasped wildly and thrust her hips into me when I took her breasts into my hands and mouth, sucking and pinching gently on her hardened nipples. She spread her legs and I dropped my hand to her panties, already wet from her arousal. I stroked her lightly, listening to her breathing become labored before pulling the intrusive fabric away and sliding a finger inside. She was so hot and wet; my dick twitched painfully in the anticipation. Her hands were at my belt then and soon my pants and boxers joined the rest of the forgotten clothes on the floor.

Her legs trembled as I began to kiss her inner thigh. She sighed angrily when I barely grazed my tongue over her clit. I held her writhing hips in place before I dipped my tongue completely between her slick folds. I sucked on her heatedly, bathing in the sound of her desperate moans. I peeked at her face, head thrown back in ecstasy, hair splayed wildly over the pillows. I swallowed and licked my lips, the best fucking thing I'd ever tasted. I slid back up her body, licking between her breasts, plunging my tongue into her open mouth, letting her taste herself on me.

Everything had turned sweaty and fucking dreamy. Every move we made was so natural and right; we fit together flawlessly. When I finally slid into her completely, she panted breathlessly something that sounded like "fuck" and "Edward" combined: Fuckward. I drove into her harder, faster, so good, push pull, bringing us both closer, harder, close, faster, very close.

I came deep inside of her once she fell over the edge. She milked my cock and I collapsed on top of her, both of us heaving in the after throes of sexual ecstasy. I pulled out and rolled off of her, exhausted and fucking sweaty. So was she; her hair was in total disarray, a few stray strands stuck to her glistening neck and chest. I brushed gentle fingers over her forehead and she closed her eyes, a glorified smile sweeping across her face.

I pulled Bella to my side, encircling her in my arms. She snuggled onto my chest, placing gentle kisses over my scorching skin. I pulled my fingers through her hair, caressed her lower back gently. She let out a relieved, satisfied sigh.

"We should do that again." She implored.

In the morning I couldn't move. I was fucking dehydrated, completely spent. Bella stirred and looked up at me, all sleepy and happy. I looked into her eyes and saw our lives stretch out in front of us. I know, how fucking sappy of me but I couldn't help it. I was one blissful bastard. I saw thousands of mornings, waking up next to her, worn-out from the night before. Our futures tangled together, intrinsically linked to each other.

Bella raised her hand and cupped my cheek. "What is it?" She asked me, her voice husky from fatigue.

I smiled and shrugged. "I love you."

"I love you, too."


End file.
